Working To Lift Barriers For Military Spouse Attorneys

Unfortunately, there are some states that remain uninterested in military spouse rules for attorneys

After graduating from Northeastern University School of Law in Boston in 2014, Nicolle Vasquez Del Favero moved to Hawaii for a coveted postgrad fellowship with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.

"I ended up working at the Domestic Violence Action Center in Hawaii," she told Law360 Pulse in a recent interview. "I had quite a bit of courtroom experience after two years."

After finishing up the two-year fellowship, she followed her husband — an active-duty Marine at the time — to where he was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia.

Little did she know how difficult it would be to jump-start her own career in Virginia as a Hawaii-licensed attorney.

"Rather than really focusing on what my next career step would be, I had to take a step back to follow my husband to Norfolk, because we'd been long distance for five years. It was make or break in our relationship, and I chose love. But when I got to Norfolk, it was incredibly hard to find a legal job."

Although Virginia has a military spouse provisional admissions licensure for attorneys, Vasquez Del Favero said it is one of the worst in the country due to a requirement that any military spouse attorney who needs to make a courtroom appearance be supervised by their local council for the duration of their time in the state — meaning she would have had to be chaperoned every time she went to court."

No one is going to hire any military spouse attorney with that provision, because it equates us to essentially a third-year law student without a bar, which is incredibly offensive," said Vasquez Del Favero, now a mother of two young children. "After two years of heavy courtroom experience, I decided to take a paralegal job just to get my feet wet and start networking."

She currently works as an assistant counsel for the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, a federal position that does not require her to have a Virginia license.

"My story is not unique," Vasquez Del Favero said. "Military spouse attorneys face many barriers. I was underemployed for about a year and a half until I got into the federal government as an attorney."

Catalysts for Change

Vasquez Del Favero is a former state licensing director for the Military Spouse JD Network, a 1,000-member bar association created to help military spouses — of whom 92% are estimated to be women — with the unique professional challenges that other attorneys do not face.

She and other MSJDN members who sat on The Standing Committee on Legal Assistance for Military Personnel were the catalysts to a resolution passed earlier in August by the American Bar Association's policymaking body. The resolution urged all state supreme courts and bar associations to accommodate the unique needs of military spouse attorneys who must move frequently to support the nation's defense.

Samantha Arrington Sliney is the MSJDN's current state licensing director, attorney adviser with the U.S. Department of the Army and an Air National Guard judge advocate general. She is also a military spouse and mother of three.

Sliney told Law360 Pulse she first brought up the attorney licensure issue in summer 2023 shortly after joining the ABA committee.

She noted that in 2022, a change was made to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act that provided assistance for military spouses such as licensing portability, but it expressly excluded attorneys from its provisions.

In addition, a resolution passed by the ABA in 2012 that was supposed to have addressed military spouse attorney licensure issues has not done enough, Sliney said. Although the majority of states have since adopted some form of military spouse attorney licensure reciprocity, the requirements vary greatly from state to state.

"Kudos to the ABA for doing something 12 years ago, but there was really no tracking or follow through on whether or not that had been successful in its intent, which was to make employability of military spouses as they follow their service member around the world easier, and in some instances, it has made it harder," Sliney said.

Attorneys who are spouses of active-duty military personnel often have difficulty obtaining licensure to practice law in the jurisdictions to which their military spouses are assigned.

The ABA's new policy makes specific recommendations to bar admission authorities to significantly improve attorney license portability for attorney spouses of active-duty military members.

For instance, it asks that courts and bar associations adopt military spouse reciprocity requirements that require no more supervision requirements than those for attorneys admitted to that jurisdiction through normal admission processes.

"The states are kind of doing their own thing, so to speak," Sliney said. "They're all taking their individual flavor on it, which is basically making it harder for military spouses, because every time we move, we're having to relearn what a specific state does or does not want us to do."

Onerous State Rules

The biggest things the ABA committee identified as issues for attorneys married to service members were very onerous supervision requirements in certain states.

Sliney said Virginia's supervision rule requiring military spouse attorneys to be escorted to every court hearing is particularly problematic.

"You're never going to get hired in private practice," she said. "That's costing the firm too much money, and too many resources, so at the end of the day, you're not getting after the overall problem, which is economic instability and financial insecurity of the family."

Florida has much more reasonable supervision requirements, Sliney said.

"Florida has a pretty decent rule," Sliney said. "Florida doesn't require you to be escorted to every court hearing, but you are required to have a Florida attorney that's like a mentor. They are a state that we like to use as an example that has chosen to have a supervision requirement, but it is a very reasonable supervision requirement."

Meanwhile, New York does not have a military spouse reciprocity or temporary licensing provision, but the New York Bar is of the opinion that it has the ability to accommodate military spouses, she said.

"New York doesn't actually have a rule in writing, so we've been working with them," Sliney said. "We are encouraging them to get a rule on the books for military spouse attorneys."

Meanwhile, some states have rules in writing, but they are completely performative, she said.
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"You have a rule on the books, and you can say you're military-friendly, but in reality, you're not," Sliney said. "Because even if spouses can get licensed, they can't practice because no one will hire them. It might be easier, like in the government sector or in-house, where you're maybe not going to court proceedings, but in any litigation-type job, you're not going to pay two attorneys to do the work of one."

Sliney said another problem is that certain states have a lengthy process for attorney licensure for military spouses.

"Some states don't allow you to apply until you're physically located in the state," she said. "So I get to the state, and I apply, and then it takes 18 months processing from the date I get my application submitted. Well, I'm now pretty close to two years into a three-year assignment, and I'm getting ready to [move] again. This rule is performative in nature. It really has done us no good, because by the time hopefully I get approved for a license, I've still got to find a job, and I'm not going to have time to find a job and actually work when I'm [moving] in six months."

Sliney said state bars generally mean well, but many people who haven't lived the military lifestyle don't understand.

"Sometimes military families will get orders six months in advance," she said. "They know they're coming to your state. If you allow the spouse to apply when they get those orders, there's a potential that they could already be licensed by the time they get there, and then they could go ahead and get a job, therefore increasing the financial stability of the military family."

Unfortunately, there are some states that remain uninterested in military spouse rules for attorneys, she said.

"Keesler Air Force Base has a very large military population located in Mississippi, and we have spent countless hours working with local legal leadership in Mississippi, along with the state bar, trying to convince them to have a rule," Sliney said. "And they have flat-out refused."

Sliney said she believes Mississippi is coming from a place of protectionism against what it perceives to be transient attorneys messing up how things are done there.

"They are very insular to that state, and very focused on attorneys that either went to Mississippi law schools or sat for the Mississippi bar exam," she said. "So that's probably the most extreme example we've seen."

Beverly Kraft, spokesperson for the Mississippi Administrative Office of Courts, referred questions about military spouse attorneys to Adam Kilgore, general counsel for The Mississippi Bar. Kilgore did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

Application fees also vary by state. Some states waive them completely, while others have a very expensive application process.

And requirements differ among the states as well.

"Some require you to have been licensed for at least five years. Some require two. It's kind of just all over the board," Sliney said.

The updated ABA resolution also asks that courts and bar associations process and complete a military spouse reciprocity application on an expedited and priority basis — within 90 days from the date of an application's submission.

A military spouse should also be allowed to provide a copy of the service member's military orders or a letter from the service member's commanding officer indicating an upcoming permanent change of station to the relevant jurisdiction in order to submit a military spouse reciprocity application, according to the new policy.

In addition, it urges courts and bar associations to waive the jurisdiction's application fees for all applicants seeking admission under the military spouse reciprocity rule.

Sliney hopes that the unanimous passage of the ABA's updated resolution will help provide some consistency in military spouse attorney rules.

"While it's not binding on the states, it gives us the ability to go back to states like Mississippi and say, 'Hey, your delegates supported this. They said this was a good thing. Why do you not have a rule?' It's not binding, but the ABA is very well-respected in the United States as a very persuasive authority when it comes to best practices in the legal field," Sliney added.