Biography - Douglas A Dribben

Doug Dribben is a civilian attorney working for the US Army Claims Service, Fort Meade, Maryland. I retired from the Army on June 1, 2003, at the US Army Claims Service as a Judge Advocate General's (JAG) Corps officer, after 24 years of active military service - 4 as a cadet at West Point, 7 as an Army Engineer Officer, and 13 as a JAG Officer. If you are familiar with the television show JAG, then you know me. To avoid paying royalties, the show changed the main character but the parallels are obvious - a former Academy graduate and line officer becomes a military attorney. He's a good-looking fellow, solves the world's problems every week in 55 minutes with commercials, and has the help of a smart and beautiful female partner.

I have two wonderful sons - Kevin, a civil engineer and University of Virginia graduate and lacrosse player on the 2003 national championship team, and Brian, a graduate of the University of Maryland and a project engineer. I don't know if it is because of, or in spite of, my engineering career. I also have two Yorkies - Missy and Chewbacca (Chewie).

As an Army attorney, I represent the US Army and other Defense entities in tort claims arising worldwide, and our NATO allies in claims arising in the US. As a former federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice, I tried numerous felony criminal cases before juries in the Middle District of Georgia including the first case using DNA evidence. A former member of the West Point Speakers Bureau and current member of the Fort Meade, Maryland Speakers Bureau, I have given numerous presentations to audiences from small groups to over 1,000 attendees on a variety of subjects. I am the owner of Professional Presentations, a consulting business in Maryland working with a variety of clients to assemble and polish oral presentations in business and education.

As a son of an Army officer, I had a very peripatetic childhood, living in Forts Riley and Leavenworth, Kansas, Heidelberg, Stuttgart, and Goeppingen, German, and Charlottesville and Vienna, Virginia. I attended six different schools before entering the US Military Academy at West Point, New York. I received my Master of Engineering Administration (Project Management) from George Washington University, my Juris Doctorate from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and my Master of Laws from the Judge Advocate General's School, Army. I have also completed the Army Command and General Staff Officer's Course.

I am admitted to practice before the US and Missouri Supreme Courts, the US Court of Military Appeals, and the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. I am also a licensed professional engineer.

I have been a facilitator at the University of Phoenix since 2000, and was designated Faculty of the Year for the Maryland Campus in 2003 and a Certified Advanced Facilitator in 2011. I was an Assistant Professor of Law at the US Military Academy from 1994-97 and served as the Course Director for the Constitutional and Military Law course required for all cadets, and an adjunct professor at St. Thomas Aquinas College in 1995-96 teaching juvenile justice. I have also taught or presented at multiple Army and TRICARE training conferences worldwide. I have been with APUS since 2006. I have authored several published articles on legal issues, authored a chapter of and edited a course textbook at West Point, and served as the Co-Editor in Chief for the American Bar Association's Urban, State, and Local Law Review.