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CHAPTER 1
GENERAL ADMINISTRATION AND SECURITY
If you are new to the Legalman (LN) rating, you
will soon learn that the scope of the rating is as broad
as the Navy’s legal system. In addition to clerical duties,
you will be required to perform many different and
important duties under the guidance of a Navy lawyer
or senior LN. These duties include matters pertaining to
military justice, claims, investigations, administrative
discharges, and legal assistance. As you advance in the
rating, you will find that your duties and responsibilities
will be expanded to include performing legal research,
preparing and administering office and claims budgets,
interviewing of witnesses and clients, and preparing to
become an office manager.
In studying the material contained in this training
manual, you will encounter several terms that are used
when working with law and other related legal matters.
You will run across these terms throughout this manual
and in your daily duties as an LN. To help you become
more familiar with these terms, a glossary is attached as
appendix I to this manual.
When you begin work in a new billet, whether it be
in a naval legal service office (NLSO) or in a small staff
judge advocate (SJA) office, one of your first jobs is to
learn as much as possible about the organization in
which you work. You should learn the primary respon-
sibilities of your office and those related functions it
performs. You also need to learn your office’s relation-
ship to the overall command organization. You must be
able to understand the organization of your office and
learn what the chain of command is for your organiza-
tion.
After you understand the functions of your office;
for example, claims, military justice, or legal assistance,
you will see how your own duties fit into these func-
tions. This knowledge will make your various jobs and
responsibilities more interesting to you.
You should know the name and the rank or rate of
every person in your office and the manner in which
signing officials sign their names. You also should learn
what part of the office operations each person performs
and how this work contributes to the overall office
functions.
Thinking of your office in relation to your ship
or station, you should study the ship or station
organization and the name, title, and rank of those above
your office in the chain of command. You should know
which other offices are closely related to yours in their
duties. To understand the Navywide program that you
are a part of, you need to study the publications related
to your work. Learn which reports are due and the
appropriate submission format.
In this chapter we discuss matters relating to corre-
spondence, publications and directives, files, reports
control system, records disposal, logs, the Judge Advo-
cate General Management Information System (JAG-
MIS), security, and the release of government
information.
CORRESPONDENCE
One of your most important tasks is the preparation
of correspondence. You will be expected to produce
properly formatted official correspondence with no
uncorrected errors. Correspondence does not just
include basic letters. The term official correspondence
includes all written materials—standard, business,
joint, and multiple-address letters; endorsements;
memorandums; messages—that are sent to or from the
command.
You should familiarize yourself with the informa-
tion provided in the Department of the Navy Correspon-
dence Manual, SECNAVINST 5216.5C, and the
Department of the Navy Directives Issuance System,
SECNAVINST 5215.1C. These two directives are the
primary sources of information used throughout the
Navy for the proper preparation of correspondence.
To handle naval correspondence properly there are
four major areas that you should become familiar with.
These areas are preparation, routing, filing, and subject
classification.
PREPARATION
As a Legalman 3 (LN3) or Legalman 2 (LN2), you
must make sure any correspondence you are assigned
to type is placed in the proper format and basic corre-
spondence procedures are followed. In addition to
following the procedures outlined in the Correspon-
dence Manual and the Directives Issuance System, it is
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