Brigadier General (ret.) Richard Gross Speaks at YLS

Brigadier General (ret.) Richard Gross, former legal counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited the law school on April 4, 2016.  Over the course of the day, Gen. Gross engaged with students during two classroom sessions and a lunchtime event open to the entire law school community.  Gen. Gross discussed his career as an operational military lawyer, including several combat tours with U.S. special operations units, as well as his time as the senior military legal advisor in the country.  He specifically focused on issues relating to the Laws of Armed Conflict, the Syrian civil war, and sexual assault in the military.

On April 5, 2016, Gen. Gross shared a breakfast with eight student veterans from the Yale Law School Veterans Society at The Study in New Haven.  The conversation ranged from professional advice and personal stories to issues of military law and the transition from military-to-civilian life.

General Gross recently retired from active military service. Before his retirement, Gen. Gross served as the former legal counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  In his role, he served as the highest- ranking uniformed operational lawyer in the United States. Throughout his long career, Gen. Gross has had multiple combat deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, in addition to other deployments abroad. Among other units, he has served in the 1st Special Operational Detachment-Delta (Airborne) as the Detachment Judge Advocate; at the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Fort Bragg, as the Staff Judge Advocate; in Kabul, Afghanistan, as the Chief Legal Advisor for the International Security Assistance Force; and, most recently, the SJA for U.S. Central Command at MacDill AFB, Tampa, Florida.