Charles D. Ablard

Charles D. Ablard (born ca. 1930) is a United States lawyer who served as General Counsel of the Army from 1975 to 1977, and who has been an administrative judge in the United States Department of Defense since 2003. He retired in 2009 and has since been involved in volunteer activities in fields of diplomacy and historic preservation in Washington DC and Alexandria, Virginia.

Biography

Charles D. Ablard was educated at the University of Oklahoma, receiving a bachelor's degree in business administration and the University of Oklahoma College of Law, receiving an LL.B. in 1954.[1] From 1954 to 1956, he served as a judge advocate officer in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps, with assignments in Japan and at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base.[1] He then attended the George Washington University Law Center, receiving an LL.M. in 1959.[1]

Professionally, Ablard practiced law as a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Ablard & Harrison; as General Counsel and Congressional Liaison for the United States Information Agency; Vice-President and Counsel for the Magazine Publishers Association, Inc., and the American Society of Magazine Editors; Special Counsel to the American Bar Association's Special Committee on Legal Services and Procedure; and Judicial Officer of the United States Post Office and Chairman of the Post Office's Board of Contract Appeals.[1] In the course of his practice in the 1960s, Ablard became a recognized expert on U.S. administrative law, and was the founder of the American Bar Association's Administrative Law News newsletter in 1962.[2]

In 1972, Ablard joined the United States Department of Justice as Associate Deputy Attorney General.[1] In 1975, President of the United States Gerald Ford nominated Ablard to be General Counsel of the Army and, after Senate confirmation, he held this position from February 25, 1975 until January 19, 1977.[3]

From 1980 to 1984, Ablard was a member of the Board for International Broadcasting.[4] He later became a partner at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Gage & Tucker.[5]

In 2003, United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld appointed Ablard to the United States Department of Defense's Office of Hearings and Appeals.[6]

Works by Charles D. Ablard

• "Some Comparisons Between the Council on Tribunals and the Administrative Conference of the United States", The American Journal of Comparative Law (1976)
• "Judicial Review of National Security Decisions: United States and United Kingdom", William and Mary Law Review, Vol. 27, Issue 4 (1986)

References

1. "Ablard is New Army General Counsel", Army Lawyer, DA Pam 27-50-28, p. 9
2. "New Section Officers and Council Members Nominated", Administrative Law News, Spring 1983
3. From Dept. of the Army History Site
4. From the finding aid for Charles D. Ablard papers 1975-1985 (Hoover Institution Archives)
5. See Charles D. Ablard, "Judicial Review of National Security Decisions: United States and United Kingdom", William and Mary Law Review, Vol. 27, Issue 4 (1986), p. 753, n.*
6. "Alumni Newsmakers", GW Magazine (Fall 2003)