Military Justice Attorneys, LLC

A practice set inside the military justice system

Based in Bluffton, South Carolina, the firm represents service members, veterans, and military contractors in matters that arise under military law. Its attorneys are all former military officers and judge advocates, which gives the firm a common professional grounding. The core of the work is criminal: courts-martial, the investigations that precede them, and appeals after a conviction.

Courts-martial are the military's own criminal trials, and a conviction can bring confinement, loss of rank, and a punitive discharge that follows a person into civilian life. Defending one calls for lawyers who know both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the way a command runs a case. The firm's attorneys draw on years spent inside that system, first in uniform and now for the defense.

Alongside the criminal docket, the firm takes on administrative actions that can end a career without a trial. It represents clients in administrative discharge proceedings, before Boards of Inquiry, and in nonjudicial punishment, known in the services as NJP. These matters can move quickly and carry consequences of their own, so a service member often needs counsel well before any formal charge is referred.

Correction boards and relief after service

A second strand of the firm's work reaches clients after they have left the military or after a case has already closed. The firm appears before the Boards for Correction of Military Records, the Discharge Review Boards, and Special Clemency and Parole Boards. These bodies can revisit an old record, and the outcome often decides access to benefits and the terms of a person's separation. The firm prepares the filings and represents clients at the hearings these boards hold.

Much of this work involves discharge upgrades, where a veteran asks to change the characterization of a discharge that has limited their options for years. The firm also handles claims that straddle military and civilian law. It works Defense Base Act cases, which cover civilian contractors injured while working overseas, and matters under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.

Its case list reaches into military mass torts as well. Two of these appear by name: Camp Lejeune water contamination claims and AFFF exposure claims. Both connect a large population of veterans to injuries tied to their service, and both fit a firm whose client base already runs through the armed forces.

The attorneys and their service records

Gerald Healy, who owns and founded the firm, began his legal career in 2004 as a Judge Advocate in the United States Marine Corps and rose to Senior Defense Counsel, earning the Navy Commendation Medal. Since 2012 he has represented service members in federal and military criminal cases, including matters connected to the Camp Lejeune Justice Act and to vaccine mandates. His practice also covers military law and personal injury.

Joshua Hill, the managing partner, commissioned as a Marine officer in 2006 and worked in military justice as both a prosecutor and a defense counsel. He later held the post of deputy staff judge advocate at MCRD Parris Island, where he advised on military and administrative law. His practice now centers on military criminal defense and civil litigation for service members and veterans.

Two more partners carry trial work. Clare C. Hodge, known as Chip, retired from active Marine Corps duty in 2022 as a lieutenant colonel and works mainly in military criminal defense, with family matters as well. Paul Murray commissioned in 2009 and handled legal assistance work at MCRD Parris Island in areas such as estate planning and family law, before defending court-martial cases that involved charges such as DUI and aggravated assault.

Senior counsel and of counsel

Jon W. Shelburne joined the firm as senior counsel. He earned his Juris Doctor from Texas Tech University School of Law in 1991 and practices in criminal defense, government, international law, and military law. Amy Thomas is of counsel. In my opinion, the spread of ranks and roles across these six attorneys points to a group whose members built their early careers inside the military justice system they now work within.

Offices near the bases the cases come from

The attorneys work across the Southeast United States and California, close to the installations where military cases begin. The firm lists a presence near Fort Stewart, Fort Benning, Fort Bragg, and Shaw Air Force Base, together with Camp Lejeune, Camp Pendleton, MCRD San Diego, MCAS Miramar, MCAS Beaufort, and MCRD Parris Island. Proximity carries weight here, since courts-martial and administrative boards convene on or near the base itself.

The firm's reach runs wider than those offices. It states that it represents military clients around the world, with service listed in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, and Hawaii, along with Germany, Italy, Japan, and South Korea. Each of those countries hosts a long-standing American military presence, which explains their place on the list. That footprint fits a caseload that can send a lawyer to a courtroom far from home.

How the work fits together

Seen as a whole, the firm's caseload tracks a single career arc in the military. It begins with the criminal and administrative trouble that can arise during service, then moves to the boards that review a discharge afterward, and later to the mass tort claims that surface when veterans link old exposures to illness. As a reviewer, I find that logic easy to follow, since the same clientele appears at each stage.

The firm is built around defending the individual service member, and that focus shows in both the practice areas it names and the backgrounds of the people who staff them. The consistency between the two is the clearest thing a reader can take from the site. Every listed matter connects back to military service, and every listed lawyer came out of it.

Structure and standing

The firm operates as a limited liability company, a form carried in its company pages and social handles. The site does not list a founding year, so its exact age is not stated on the public pages. Gerald Healy owns and founded it, Joshua Hill runs it as managing partner, and Chip Hodge and Paul Murray hold the two other partner titles.

One thread runs through every biography on the site. Each attorney the firm names came to it from a career as a uniformed officer or judge advocate, and the work they do today sits in the same field they once handled from the government side.