Letter to the Hon. Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense - Speier, Gillibrand Call on Pentagon to Strengthen Special Victims' Counsel Program

Letter

Dear Secretary Austin,

Since the program's creation in 2013, the Special Victims' Counsel program has provided muchneeded access to support to survivors of military sexual trauma. Special Victims' Counsel (SVC) and Victims' Legal Counsel (VLC) assist survivors in navigating their rights in the military
justice system, and military entitlements more generally, in their hour of need. The military owes
these survivors consistent, high-quality advocacy to begin to address the harm that has been done to them under the military's watch.

There are uniform statutory requirements for the SVC/VLC programs that cover minimum
services to be provided and basic qualification requirements, but the services have retained the
ability to shape many aspects of their program implementation. While this no doubt allows the
services to address some unique needs and challenges, these service differences have also
revealed gaps and best practices.

Additionally, in our oversight work as the leaders of the House Armed Services Military
Personnel Subcommittee and the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee and in serving
constituents, we have heard from many survivors about their experiences with their SVCs/VLCs.
Through these conversations there have been several consistent concerns regarding the
independence and continuity of counsel, which varies between military services with disparate
results for clients.

Further examination into these concerns reveals the vastly different approaches and outcomes in
the services. For example, the SVC/VLC in the Army and the Marine Corps maintain closer
relationships with installation legal offices, whereas those in the Air Force and Navy have more
independence in terms of supervision and support.

While we certainly appreciate the need to retain some flexibility to adapt to the unique
considerations of each service, we also firmly believe that there is room for more uniform
implementation across military services that will improve the service provided to military sexual
trauma survivors. In that spirit, we offer the following suggestions for where you, at the
department level, can enhance uniformity and better meet the needs of survivors.

1. Establish Uniform Guidance Mandating a Minimum 2-year assignment duration for
SVC/VLC.

One of the top complaints we have heard from military sexual trauma survivors is that they had
to work with multiple SVC/VLC on their case due to personnel turnover. Each time a survivor
has to change counsel, they have to re-tell their story and suffer the learning curve of a new
advocate as they become acquainted with the case. There is also a loss of continuity with
ongoing actions, since many military justice proceedings for sex-related offenses take more than
one year.

While the services have all taken steps to ensure a thorough transition between incoming and
outgoing SVC/VLC, not all have done enough to reduce the amount of turnover. For example,
in the Navy and the Air Force the average assignment duration for an SVC/VLC is two to three
years, while in the Army and the Marine Corps the average assignment duration is twelve to
fifteen months. Further, the common practice in the Army and Marines is to treat SVC/VLC
assignments as part of a rotation while assigned to an installation, rather than a dedicated tour.
We understand the need to rotate personnel for various reasons, but twelve to eighteen months is simply not enough time for a counsel to build relationships, develop experience and see actions
through to completion. We ask you to direct the military services to revise their SVC/VLC
assignment policies and procedures with the objective of 2-year minimum assignment lengths, in
most cases, for these critical client-focused positions. While the Army and Marine Corps
currently treat SVC/VLC assignments as but one of multiple assignments within a tour,
generating shorter times in the position, we ask that you challenge them to think creatively about
treating SVC/VLC positions as independent tours without another job to fit in, or about
extending some tour lengths to allow for longer durations in both an SVC/VLC role and any
other roles within the tour. A lack of creativity about how to approach assignment lengths should
not hinder the assistance available to victims.

2. Establish Uniform Guidance Mandating Independent Supervisory Chains for SVC/VLC.

The SVC/VLC program exists to represent the interest of military sexual trauma survivors, even
when those interests are at odds with the interests of the chain of command. In this respect,
SVC/VLC are similar to military Trial Defense Counsel who are charged to represent their
clients against the government's prosecution. While Trial Defense Counsel are uniformly
assigned to independent chains of command to preserve their independence from local chains of
command, the same is not always true for SVC/VLC.

The Air Force, Navy, and Marines have established independent supervisory chains for the
SVC/VLC. Though unique in specifics, all share the key characteristic that (1) SVC/VLC are
supervised for guidance and evaluative purposes through a legal services chain that is centralized
within the service, and (2) the individual SVC/VLC does not rely on any member of the chain of
command at their installation for performance evaluations. The Army is an outlier in this regard
because Army SVC are evaluated by local Staff Judge Advocates, who in turn are evaluated by
the chain of command. We are concerned that this arrangement creates the potential to constrain
the independence of SVC and their ability to zealously advocate for their survivor clients. We
ask that you issue uniform guidance mandating a minimum amount of independence for
SVC/VLC that prohibits the local chain of command from being in the rating chain of an
SVC/VLC, or that counsel's supervisor.

We hope that you share our concern with improving the quality of the SVC/VLC program that is
such an important resource for those who have already had to endure the betrayal of trust and
trauma of military sexual violence. The steps we propose are simple and will address the
concerns from many survivors and advocates. Thank you for your attention to this important
issue.

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