The #Navy is revising how it manages #legal services, officials announced Thursday.

Future JAG officers, take note: this will affect how your career starts.

Starting in October, the Naval Legal Service Command will essentially divide responsibilities into two separate categories. Civil legal assistance for Navy personnel, such as help with wills and landlord disputes, will now be administered out of nine Region Legal Service Organizations.

Defense legal work for administrative proceedings and courts-martial, in turn, will be handled out of four consolidated Defense Service Offices located at San Diego, Washington, D.C., Norfolk, and Yokosuka, Japan. These will replace the existing eight Naval Legal Service Offices.

"The demand for Navy JAG Corps' services is greater than ever, but the nature of our practice has changed significantly over the past several years," Vice Adm. Nanette DeRenzi, the Judge Advocate General of the Navy, said in a statement.

As part of the change, the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps will focus the first two years of all new JAGs' careers on training in prosecuting and defending cases, providing legal assistance, and advising Navy commands.

A JAG report to the American Bar Association elaborates on the Navy's legal work, and declares that the change in JAG career training will "broaden the professional development of new judge advocates and more quickly prepare them to assume increased responsibility."