NIMJ Announces Creation of Three Chairs

In recognition of NIMJ's continued expansion and increasing prominence, the Executive Board has created three Chairs to be held by those who, in the estimation of NIMJ, contribute as the most significant national voices in the field of military justice. Each chair honors historic figures in the development of military law.

The William Winthrop Chair in Military Law: 

​Eugene R. Fidell
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This chair honors William Winthrop, a treatise writer and scholar from the 1800s who was among the first to systematize military law. The Supreme Court of the United States has referred to Winthrop as “Blackstone of Military Law,” Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 19, n. 38,  (1957). NIMJ accordingly confers this chair on the most learned and prominent living scholar of military justice in the United States: Eugene Fidell. Fidell, like Winthrop, spent decades convincing an often-reluctant legal academy (and bar) that military justice was a field worthy of serious study. Without these efforts, the field would have remained an intellectual backwater. Because of him, it is not. He has mentored a generation of law professors as well as hundreds of law students at Yale, where he regularly teaches military justice. 

The Ansell-Crowder Chair in Military Justice Reform:

Rachel VanLandingham

Military justice, like all law, is constantly in flux. From time to time, there are significant debates about its fundamental character. One of the most prominent of these debates occurred between two military lawyers after WWI: Major General Enoch H. Crowder & Brigadier General Samuel T. Ansell. Fred L. Borch, Military Justice in Turmoil: The Ansell-Crowder Controversy of 1917-1920, The Army Lawyer (March 2017). This chair honors these two men for spurring public deliberation about the future of military justice. NIMJ accordingly confers this chair on the most prominent scholarly advocate for the reform of military justice in the United States: Rachel VanLandingham. VanLandingham, like Ansell and Crowder, has been at the center of all significant debates about the future of military justice--advising Senators, Secretaries, and the public, where she frequently appears in the nation's most prominent media outlets. 

The Morgan-Larkin Chair

Vacant

This chair honors the architects of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: Edmund Morgan and Felix Larkin. Prior to the UCMJ, servicemembers' lives and liberty were subject to the archaic and draconian Articles of War (even up to WWII)--a legal regime that did not even have judges. The UCMJ created what is now known as CAAF.

The NIMJ Board welcomes nominations for this Chair from the public (please send email to [email protected]).