Boots on the Ground, Briefs in Hand: 2L Tom Malaspina Discusses Serving Veterans
Boots on the Ground, Briefs in Hand: 2L Tom Malaspina Discusses Serving Veterans
Dean Jeremy Counseller sits down with aspiring JAG officer and dedicated volunteer at the Baylor Law School Veterans Clinic, 2L Tom Malaspina. Together, they dive into the heart of legal practice—service—and walk through Baylor Law School students’ incredible work helping Central Texas veterans facing legal challenges—from estate planning to consumer protection. Plus, they spotlight Baylor’s renowned mock trial and advocacy program and what it takes to make the team.
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TRANSCRIPT
Jeremy
I'm Jeremy Counseller, Dean of Baylor Law School. And welcome to Counseller's Corner. My guest today is second-year Baylor Law student Tom Malaspina. Tom, welcome to the podcast.
Tom
Thank you very much Dean Counseller. I'm happy to be here.
Jeremy
Good. You have had a lot of success in law school, and we'll talk a little bit about that. But your journey to Baylor Law School was not exactly a straight line, free from all adversity or challenge. So, if you would, share that, that journey with us, Tom.
Tom
Yeah, sure. So, as you put it, it wasn't a straight line. I think a lot of people wish it would be. In my case, it wasn't. I graduated in 2022 from TCU, which not necessarily good to mention at Baylor, but, I've been welcomed here, and that's true especially of my path. When admissions came to me and, I got to know them very well, they really helped me through this process.
I was one of the nontraditional students who tried to apply to every, every quarter, tried to get everyone, up every opportunity available to me. I applied a total of five times to get in here. Was successful on my fifth, So third time's a charm is no longer my phrase. It's fifth time's a charm.
Jeremy
You know, on a number of occasions I've talked to lawyers and judges who've got 20, 30, 40 years experience and asked the question, what do you think is the most important characteristic of a good lawyer? And top on their list, and often the number one thing is resilience, the ability to kind of take a licking and, and keep on ticking and,
Tom
Right.
Jeremy
... and that's what you're talking about. How has that, and you mentioned this, but how has that helped you once you were in law school and now that you're going through law school?
Tom
Yeah, the clearest example comes from basically the idea that you have to have an internal reason. You've got to have a reason that keeps you going long after you have no reason to, because you will be in the library, and you will question what you did. Why did I do this? Nobody forced me to do this. I'm paying for this.
This is voluntary. You know why? Why did I do this? And I had that. Heck, I've had it approaching exams almost every time. But every single time, my rationale of wanting to serve in the Army JAG Corp beats out any of those fears. And so, whenever that comes up, whenever I think I can just stop, this is, you know, there's a way out I can send in my resignation letter, as it were.
But when you have something that keeps you going, you can do it. And that's, that's what I think I, the exams, is what I would say. You have to apply resiliency to.
Jeremy
I'll have you know that I never once had a moment of doubt in law school. No, I'm kidding. Mine, mine was, wouldn't it be nice to be a history teacher, you know?
Tom
Yeah
Jeremy
that was, my just a nice little life. Summers off. But your internal reason, your why is you want to serve your country in the JAG Corp.
Tom
Yeah. That's right. Yes, sir.
Jeremy
Talk. Talk about what the JAG Corp is, just generally. And what you hope to do after law school.
Tom
Sure.
So. So the Jaguar is the army lawyers. Well, Army, JAG has a branch in or, excuse me, has a division in every branch there. You could go Coast Guard, Navy, Marines even have their own. I want to go Army. My grandfather was in the army. My other grandfather, he was in the Air Force. I'm sure he doesn't really like that, but had to pick one.
They're the military lawyers. When commanding officers need advice on rules of engagement or administrative law, or dealing with local politics or, you know, base politics, things like that, they come seek your advice. You advise them on rules of engagement, on procurement of supplies, basically everything you might need on the back end and also your traditional hey, my, you know, the corporal over here went out, had some problems in town, got arrested.
You have to deal with that. So, you're sort of a jack of all trades.
Jeremy
That's a, that's a good why. Talk about my understanding you're not currently in no army.
So we do have some students who have been in the Army and remain in the, in the Army or another branch of the military while they're in law school.
Tom
That's right.
Jeremy
They go back into their, their new role in the JAG Corp. You're going to go a different route, which is also quite common. Talk about what that process is after you graduate law school.
Tom
Yeah. So it's actually quite interesting. The process starts before I graduate. Next fall, I'll have to apply for the commission. I'll start in the reserves.
Jeremy
What? When you say commission.
Tom
Yeah, yeah. So, the application process, you start as an officer. And so being an officer in the Army, you're required to apply for a commission essentially for these roles with a, army doctors, Army lawyers, Army chaplains. It's a different route. You know, you have your traditional combat officers, infantry officers. Then you have your specialists, essentially, if you will, lawyers, doctors, chaplains.
The application requires you to go through background checks, transcripts, pretty much A to Z, everything you've ever done, have you sneezed at this time of the year? Have you tripped over a rock? Have you jaywalked before, you? It's kind of an all intensive look into who you are. Then you do an interview with a field screening officer.
Mine will be attached to Fort Cavazos, given our proximity here in Waco. But that process begins prior to graduation. It is a few months, I would say, of applications, statements, essays. Pretty traditional for an application. And then if you're successful on that front, you are able to commission and then the work post law school starts.
Jeremy
We've talked about your path to better law school and what you want to do after law school. Let's talk a little bit about some of the things you do in law school. You are one of our student ambassadors.
Tom
Yes. That's right.
Jeremy
So tell us about what it means to be a student ambassador.
Tom
Well, like we were talking about earlier, I had a…
Being in this role now feels strange. I'll tell you, I've done 50 plus tours, had some very wonderful opportunities to meet great people.
And it's a really humbling experience because I get to see so many impressive people, many of whom are admitted and then eventually become my colleagues. And so it's really nice to have that influence to say, look, let me take you around the school. Let's talk. You know, you can, you can stay your professional sel.
Jeremy
Well, you're, you're, you're very good at it. I mean, we…
Tom
I appreciate that.
Jeremy
We put a lot of VIPs, you know, it's not just students, right. Sometimes it's, it's, it's alumni. And you come in, we like let's, let's get Tom in there to give them a good… And then we get a lot of compliments about about you when they are done, so well.
Tom
I appreciate that.
00:07:21:22 - 00:07:23:26
We appreciate all, that that you do.
Okay. Something else that you do is you, you volunteer in our veteran’s clinic.
Tom
I do, yes.
Jeremy
Talk about what our veteran’s clinic does and some of the things that students get to do in the veteran’s clinic.
Tom
Yeah, this, this was, arguably the crown jewel in why I wanted to come to Baylor. I knew for a fact, prior to applying to any law school that I really wanted to serve, I didn't know what that was going to look like yet. Found the JAG Corp prior to my applications here and ran with it. And when I found that Baylor had not only a veteran’s clinic, but a highly developed, highly successful veteran’s clinic, that thrilled me.
And so, of course, I got involved on day one. And what it looks like is a collection of us students. We go to the veterans one stop center over there on LaSalle and we have what's called legal seminars. It's basically we sit in a room and all of the directors and participants will sit out in the… They've got this very large kitchen area and cafeteria area. They'll sit out and fill out an intake form. They'll bring it back, say, hey, looks like we have an estate planning issue.
Would anybody like to take this one? Or we've got a, divorce situation or a, damage to a vehicle, things like that. And what we do is students, obviously not trying to disbar ourselves before we even get the chance to be barred. We don't give legal advice, but we are the fact finders. We sit down with them.
So tell me what happened. You know, I understand you're in for this issue. Tell me a little bit about that. I always like to start at their comfortable by asking them about their service. And a lot of them have very cool stories. One man that I talked to specifically was on, I believe, man, he was attached to the fifth group, I believe the Fifth Fleet for 17 years.
And that was a great story to talk about. And again, that clinic helps people who need it. And the veterans have helped us more than we know. I certainly don't ever want that to be a back thought in my mind. And so, helping them through these issues, if we can be that support for them, that's exactly what I'm going to be.
Jeremy
Yeah, it, what you said touches upon some things that I think we emphasize here at Baylor Law School, which is one, the practice of law is a people profession.
Tom
That's right.
Jeremy
At the end of the day, the core of what we do is service.
Tom
That's right.
Jeremy
We serve people. And we do. We serve them for money, typically, but we try to emphasize through the veteran’ s clinics and other programs that we have that this is about service. So you better get used to it and you might as well get started.
Tom
You're right. You're right.
Jeremy
I want to point out something that's sort of a another kudos to you. You made a mock trial team recently.
Tom: I did.
Jeremy
Tell me about that.
Tom
So the, the mock trial team was another part of why I wanted to come here. But yeah, the application process for Mock Trial consisted of getting a packet, and we had to prepare a five minute opening statement. We didn't have to get through all the facts. It was quite extensive, but we set up for a time, and everybody and five minute intervals from about 3 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. went in and delivered their five minute speech.
All the coaches were in there and they essentially picked their favorites. Who do you think delivered their best emotional line,and who had a good hook? Things along those lines. And then we were notified which teams we, we made.
Yeah.
Jeremy
I think you're going to have a great experience with Professor Tilley. I mean, he is… There's a long history. He's new here at Baylor, but he has a long history of success and interscholastic competition.
Tom
Right.
Jeremy
Coaching. One of the things that I, you're right to point out, the law school, our law school, is just tremendously successful when it comes to competitions and championships.
But one of the things that I think makes us, that I'm really proud of is, we try to involve as many students as we can in our interscholastic competition teams, because we think it's so important for their education.
Tom
And to that point, by the way, about how Baylor emphasizes those skills, it's required as part of the curriculum to the moot court competition. The interscholastic competition is part of LARC three. That's a great hands on experience to what advocacy can be like simulating those teams. Well, not really simulating. You're doing the work. Yeah. With the student judges, the barristers. That is a really great entry point, for people, like you said, to get their feet in the water. Let’s see if this is something I want to do. Experience those advocacy teams. It’s pretty impressive.
Jeremy
There's so many opportunities for advocacy here. Yeah okay. We're going to move on to the lightning round.
Tom
Oh boy.
Jeremy
Your answers have to be, short. If you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be and why?
Tom
I would live in Dubrovnik, Croatia. My family is Croatian, on my mother's side, and that is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been in. I was fortunate enough to visit there. I’d live there.
Jeremy
If you can instantly master one hobby or sport, what would it be?
Tom
One hobby or sport?
Jeremy
Instantly master.
Tom
Hockey. I played hockey my whole life. I would have to say that.
Jeremy
Did you grow up someplace cold?
Tom
No. Not particularly. I grew up on the West Coast, in California, and we had a lot of emphasis on hockey out there. We had a professional team, and there's three in the state. Just seemed to be the sport I gravitated towards.
Jeremy
Okay. Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Tom
Night owl. Without a doubt. I do not like getting up for, for early classes and civil procedure at 8:00 Am for my first ever class, that was…
Jeremy
I'm a morning person.
Tom
That was. Yeah. Yeah, I know that.
Jeremy
Favorite restaurant in Waco.
Tom
Dicampli, the Italian place. Absolutely.
Jeremy
Okay.
If you could have any animal as a pet. Not a not a cat or a dog or a fish. But what would you pick?
Tom
Oh, man. That's a really good one. I don't know, because I love dogs. I mean, that would be my my answer, but if I have to be.
Jeremy
You can have a dog too.
Tom
I can. Oh. In addition to. Okay.
Man, I really don't know. Does it have to be something that's practical, or can this be truly out of the box?
Jeremy
Tom.
Tom
I would say, kangaroo probably.
Jeremy
That's a good answer.
Tom
I would say it took me…
Jeremy
A while to get there. Yeah.
Tom
I was trying to think about the practicalities of it. I got to get, get out of my head on that front and just say, yeah, that'd be pretty fun to have them hop around.
Jeremy
Okay, I understand you have some questions for me. A question or questions.
Tom
I do. Yeah. So, so one of the, the major questions I'd like to know, if you could have a conversation with any legal mind from history, living or dead, what question would you ask them? Anybody. And they had to be truthful with you. What would you ask them?
Jeremy
Oh man, that is a good question. I'm not sure I'm going to have a good answer to it.
Tom
I took my time with the kangaroo. So you go ahead.
Jeremy
Well, I mean, it was, you know, Thurgood Marshall…
Tom
Okay.
Jeremy
comes to mind, right? I've always, I admire his writing. And I want to talk to him about the transition from being, a lawyer who had just tremendous achievements to then being an associate justice on the Supreme Court. I would be really interested to, to hear him.
Do you have another question?
Tom
Yeah. Okay.
That one, that one was just,
Off the top of my head.
The, the very meteoric rise that you've had here as a. Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy
Meteoric.
Tom
Scripted. Scripted? No. From being, you know, the coveted civil procedure professor, which you still retain to this day, and now taking over from the longest serving dean at any law school in the country, how do you feel that's going as far as your procedure now? Excuse me, procedure.
your, your process now being Dean? A lot of presidents talk about their first 100 days. What's your first hundred days been like?
Jeremy
I don't know that I would call my rise meteoric. I've, I've been here for almost 22 years. I think meteors move, more quickly than that, but
Tom
Maybe.
Jeremy
I,I think it's going well. You know, it's one of those things, like, you know, people, are like I don't know if I agree with that. But I, I have, the thing I always say when people ask me, how's it going is this job has such a variety of different things that you do. I mean, right now I'm talking to you -
Tom: Sure.
Jeremy
on this podcast. There's a day where I'm greeting a delegation of judges from a foreign country to the -
Tom
Right.
Jeremy
welcoming them to the law school. You know, a lot of it's, you know, looking at policy and all sorts of different things, meeting with faculty, having faculty meetings.
So, there's such a tremendous variety of tasks and responsibilities that you, you will never be bored. I mean, you I will say one big takeaway is the job is not boring. And I really appreciate that about the job. There's some things that we've done in the, first six months that I'm that I'm, really proud of, related to, student scholarship funding and things like that, that I'm really proud of and I think make a make a big difference in the lives of, of some of our students.
So, that, that's kind of where, I'm feeling right now. But also, you know, I'm, I'm like you there, there are other things I want us to achieve and. And get to so it's a balance of appreciating kind of the moment and then also looking to the, to the horizon a little bit.
Tom
I'll echo what the students have been saying about you, something maybe you haven't heard or I'm sure you have in some way.
Jeremy
This flattery will get you everywhere Tom.
Tom
Yeah, I hope so. That's, that's the goal. A lot of people, especially what you just mentioned about the scholarship initiative, that changed a lot of lives. I mean, Baylor, we have a very intense school.
Yeah. I often say to people who come in for tours, this is the Marine Corps of law schools. You have to be ready for this.
Jeremy
Yeah.
This is not your traditional first year here, second year. What's, what's… the first year they work you, second year they work you harder, third year they bore you. Something Along those lines. The traditional downplay of law school. We accelerate.
Jeremy
Well, one thing that you said, I mean, in terms of the, the way we, it's rigorous, and you said Marine Corps of law schools was a publication a number of years ago who called us that. I think it's important to understand why. Because what we want is for students to be ready for the rigors of the profession.
Tom
Absolutely.
Jeremy
And so, I really want students to feel like they're challenged in law school. But what, what we're all aiming at and this is my faculty and staff colleagues, two, three, four years out of law school. We want them to look back and say, I was really well prepared -
Tom: right.
Jeremy
for the practice. And so that's what we're aiming at, an education that kind of reflects the natures of the profession.
Tom
Well, and I think, I think it's, I again, I don't have any real world experience just yet in terms of how these lessons apply.
But I can already see the difference in friends of mine who go to other law schools. Certainly won't tell what schools those are, but they're saying, oh, you do moot court. That's required? You have to prepare your own brief. You what do you mean? You have five iterations of your writing class before you then get to practice court where you have more?
Well, I only had one semester of it and it was kind of a pass fail grade. I don't know, maybe I wrote a brief or two. The emphasis that Baylor places on these practical skills is exactly why Baylor is at the forefront of preparing those real world lawyers. You know, you can learn anything in academia. To the, you know, theoretical sense. How exactly does that apply?
And especially in a profession like ours where we are built on our reputations, our names. How do we carry ourselves?
We're in courtrooms a lot of the time. We're negotiating deals. If you don't know how to do those things, but, you're well…
I know the theory of negotiation because of this textbook entry I read.
If you can't move it from the textbook to the real world, I would argue.
it's not helpful. And Baylor does an excellent job of being the bridge between those two things. We have excellent textbooks, we have excellent professors, but they teach you how to apply it. And I think that's the piece that entices so many people to come to Baylor in the first place.
They want to be leaders in their industry. And to do that, you have to have that capable, that capability. And Baylor prepares you really well to do that.
Jeremy
Well, I hope Baylor continues to prepare you well for serving our country in the JAG, Army JAG. And thanks for representing us well and all that that you do for us here. Thanks so much Tom.
Tom
Thanks for having me.
Jeremy
Appreciate you.
