School of Law's Robert Muth Named San Diego County Veteran of the Year

University of San Diego School of Law Director of Legal Clinics and Professor of Law Bob Muth was recognized as San Diego County Veteran of the Year at the 28th Annual San Diego County Veteran of the Year luncheon on Nov. 9.

The Veteran of the Year program was established in 1989 to recognize the contributions of veterans to the San Diego community. In 2001, the program expanded to encourage many civic, government, corporate, and service organizations to honor their veterans by selecting their Veteran of the Year. From the pool of Veterans of the Year candidates, only one is selected as the San Diego County Veteran of the Year.

“It’s a tremendous honor, very humbling,” Muth said. “It’s really not about anything I’ve done. What a blessing it has been to work with people at the University of San Diego and with our community partners to do the very best that we can for veterans in our community.”

Muth is the academic director of USD School of Law Clinics, as well as the supervising attorney of the Veterans Legal Clinic.

“I couldn’t be prouder of the program we have at the law school to support veterans in our community,” he said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity to both train law students and at the same time do good for the veterans who served their country.”

Muth served as a marine officer (captain) and judge advocate in the United States Marine Corps where he worked primarily as a criminal defense attorney, handling a wide range of criminal matters, including high profile cases involving allegations of war crimes and mishandling of classified information. Muth also deployed for 13 months to Fallujah, Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, supervised the defense trial team and had full management and responsibility of all legal defense of alleged misconduct by Marines and Sailors arising and adjudicated in Iraq. He represented over 115 Marines and Sailors at general and special courts martial, and more than 40 service members at contested administrative separation hearings. Muth provided non-criminal legal assistance to over 250 military personnel on a variety of matters, including consumer law, family law, trusts and estates planning, tax planning, and USERRA and SCRA issues. He also taught Rules of Engagement courses to hundreds of Marines and Sailors in pre-deployment training briefs.

Muth was named the Defense Counsel of the Year, Navy-Marine Corps Trial Judiciary, Western Judicial Circuit in 2008-09 and also serves as a board member of the San Diego Veterans Coalition, a prominent local nonprofit veterans collaborative organization.

“We are so pleased about this deserved recognition of Bob Muth’s extraordinary commitment to veterans, especially those in the San Diego community,” said Associate Dean Margaret Dalton, who previously served as the director of USD Legal Clinics. “In conjunction with his extensive volunteer efforts for veterans’ groups in our county, Professor Muth has excelled in training the next attorneys who will be ready, willing and able to assist our veterans with their critical legal needs.”

— Katie Pinto

Ryan T. Blystone contributed to this story