On Jan. 22, Case Western Reserve University School of Law hosted Rear Admiral and Judge Advocate General and Chief Counsel of the U.S. Coast Guard, Richard Batson (LAW ‘02) for a lecture on the U.S. Coast Guard and Maritime Governance.
Rear Admiral Batson spoke to a packed room about how the U.S. Coast Guard, through its 11 statutory missions and its status as a law enforcement agency, regulatory agency, member of the U.S. intelligence community and one of the nation’s six armed services exercises its exceptionally broad statutory authority to provide maritime governance around the world.
Rear Admiral Batson leads over 400 judge advocates and civilian attorneys in the delivery of legal services worldwide. He assumed his current duties in June after serving as the Chief of Staff for the Fifth Coast Guard District, where he was responsible for Coast Guard operational forces and missions throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.
Batson has also served as the Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard’s national field-level legal command; as the Chief of the Office of Legal Policy and Program Development; and has extensive experience as a military justice practitioner, having served as a prosecutor, a Military Judge and a member of DoD interservice team of experts that drafted the Military Justice Act of 2016, one of the most significant revisions to the UCMJ since its adoption. Outside the legal program, Admiral Batson served as the speechwriter and special assistant to the Commandant, Executive Officer of the Coast Guard’s Atlantic area operational intelligence fusion center, as Senior Investigating Officer and Chief of Waterways Management for the West Coast of Florida, and aboard the Coast Guard Cutter WOODRUSH in Sitka, Alaska.
Rear Admiral Batson received his law degree in 2002 from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law.