Should someone enlisting in the military take an attorney to the recruiting office?
It is not worth paying a lawyer to go the the recruiting office with you.First, you will be spending a large number of hours there (and especially at MEPS), thus the lawyer fees would add up very rapidly, and with little to no benefit to the enlistee. Enlistment contracts are standard Defense Department forms, and by and large enlistees fall into general categories within these forms.The only people who could possibly benefit from consulting a lawyer (taking copies of the contracts to a lawyer) are those attempting to enroll in a specialized field, such as SEALS, Green Berets, etc. In these programs with high failure rates, it is possible to have a stipulation in your contract saying that you will be discharged from service if you do not succeed in training. Without this stipulation, you would become a regular sailor/soldier upon failure in BUDS or whatever other special forces training you may have failed out of. Most people applying for these programs do not opt for any stipulations upon failure, and are usually placed in other highly skilled jobs after failure (people applying for these programs are typically smarter and more able than the average joe).The people you hear getting "screwed" were told to join the service, and then attempt to get into the field that they want. In this case, you end up being general infantry, or a "striker" (sailor without rating), and must then jump through the many hoops to laterally transfer to your community of choice (significantly difficult to do). Remember, enlisting will not make you a pilot, and it will not make you an officer. While there are programs out there that make officers from enlisted men and women, these programs are very selective, and highly competitive, with the majority of people applying not being selected (and the majority of people starting the application process not finishing the application).If you want a special community, such as Nuclear Power, Special Forces, Air Crew, Linguist, Crypto, etc., make sure it is guaranteed in the attachments to your DD Form 4. Simple as that.Lastly, the best thing you can do to save yourselves thousands of dollars in lawyer fees (or even the hundreds it would cost you to have a lawyer review your contract) is to do a little research online. Finding somebody with experience in the field you wish to join is also relatively easy. Listen to what they have to say, and take that under advisement.Always remember, you can renege on your contract up to the point you sign your final DD Form 4, which happens the day they send you to boot camp. Your recruiter will not volunteer this information, of course, and while this is in violation of your DEP contract, I have never heard of the military pursuing legal action in any of these cases (it is not in the interest of the military to spend tens of thousands of dollars on you for simply deciding that you actually did not want to join the service, and have not cost the military anything at all yet). It might make your recruiter angry, but he'll get over it. Its your life after all. He is upset over the large number of hours he has spent working with you and on your paperwork, and when a person reneges it makes the recruiter feel like that person wasted his time.A little research on this matter pays massive dividends at the recruiter's office and at MEPS:Lawyer's general advice:http://faircontracts.org/issues/... DD Form 4:http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directiv...Legal Disclaimer - I am not a lawyer, nor do I have any formal law training. All of my statements above are based on personal observation of 12 years of military service, and having gone through the process myself 12 years ago.