Military Attorney vs Government Contracts Attorney: Federal Procurement Law Across Legal Systems

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A veteran starts a company and hears, somewhere along the way, that the federal government sets aside work for businesses like theirs. The next thought is often a wrong one: that the base legal office, or a JAG, is the place to set this up. It is not. A service member’s or veteran’s private business sits outside what a military legal-assistance office does, and the work of winning federal contracts belongs to a different kind of lawyer entirely. What military service actually contributes here is not legal help but a status, one that can open a federal door that stays closed to most other small businesses.

This guide explains what that status provides, what it does not, and where a government contracts attorney does the real work.

Military legal assistance is built for a service member’s personal civil legal needs. Wills, powers of attorney, family matters, consumer disputes, landlord questions. A private business venture falls outside that scope. A legal-assistance attorney does not form a member’s company, negotiate its commercial contracts, or represent it in a dispute, because those are commercial matters rather than personal ones.

That makes the government-contracts setting different from most areas where military service and civilian law overlap. In housing or family law, a base legal office advises while a civilian attorney litigates. Here there is no parallel military track. The veteran-owned business is a civilian enterprise that happens to be owned by someone who served, and the legal work it needs is ordinary government-contracts work. The military connection shows up not as a lawyer but as a contracting preference.

What Veteran Status Actually Provides

The federal government buys an enormous volume of goods and services, and it channels a share of that spending toward small businesses owned by particular groups. Service-disabled veterans are one of them. The vehicle is the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program, with a companion program for veteran-owned small businesses that are not service-disabled.

The preference comes in the form of goals and reserved competition. Across the federal government, the goal for awards to service-disabled veteran-owned firms is now at least five percent of contracting dollars each year, raised from a longstanding three percent by the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024. The Department of Veterans Affairs goes further for its own buying. Under its Vets First program, the VA sets its own goal no lower than the government-wide level and in practice aims higher, carrying an internal prime-contracting goal of fifteen percent for veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned businesses, and within the VA those firms receive a priority that does not exist elsewhere. The practical effect is that certain solicitations are open only to these businesses, which removes the rest of the field from the competition.

Who Qualifies as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Business

This label is not claimed loosely. A firm has to meet specific ownership and control tests:

  • at least fifty-one percent of the business must be owned by one or more service-disabled veterans, and that ownership must be direct and unconditional
  • a service-disabled veteran must control the day-to-day operations and hold the long-term decision-making authority
  • the veteran’s disability must be service-connected, established through the VA or the Department of Defense, and any rating percentage can qualify
  • the company must meet the Small Business Administration’s size standard for its line of work

A veteran-owned small business that is not service-disabled meets the same ownership and control tests without the disability requirement, and its preference operates mainly at the VA rather than government-wide.

Certification Through the Small Business Administration

Claiming the status is now a formal step rather than a representation a business makes about itself. Certification runs through the Small Business Administration’s Veteran Small Business Certification program, known as VetCert. The certification function moved to the SBA from the VA on January 1, 2023, giving veterans a single point of contact for it.

Two tightening steps followed, and they are easy to confuse. To win a set-aside or sole-source award reserved for service-disabled veteran-owned firms, a business must be certified by the SBA, not merely eligible for certification, a requirement in effect since the start of 2024. Separately, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024 closed the last gap by ending self-certification even for the narrower purpose of counting an award toward an agency’s goals, with a filing deadline near the end of 2024 after which the option disappeared entirely. Alongside certification, a contractor registers in the federal System for Award Management, the database contracting officers check, and keeps that registration current, since a lapse can end eligibility on its own.

How a Set-Aside Actually Works

The preference becomes concrete in two ways, and both turn on the same thing: a contract reserved for the veteran’s status. In a competitive set-aside, a contracting officer may close a solicitation to service-disabled veteran-owned firms alone when at least two are expected to compete at a fair price, which removes the rest of the field entirely. In a sole-source award, when two qualified veteran-owned firms are not expected to compete, the officer may award directly to one such firm without a competition, up to a regulatory dollar ceiling above which the work returns to open competition. Either way, what reserves the work is the certified veteran status, not anything a military legal office does.

Reaching a Larger Contract Without Losing the Status

The veteran status also survives teaming. A service-disabled veteran-owned business can form a joint venture with a larger company and still count as service-disabled veteran-owned, letting the venture pursue a set-aside contract larger than the veteran’s firm could win alone, as long as the veteran-owned firm is the managing venturer. The status is the asset that carries into the partnership, and keeping it intact is structuring work for a government contracts attorney rather than anything the military supplies.

Where a Government Contracts Attorney Comes In

The status opens the door. Walking through it is legal and regulatory work that has nothing to do with military service, and it is where a government contracts attorney earns the engagement. That work spans the life of a federal contract: structuring the business and any joint venture to meet the ownership and control rules, preparing a compliant proposal, and reading a solicitation against the Federal Acquisition Regulation that governs it.

The contested moments are sharper still. A competitor can file a bid protest challenging an award, or a status protest arguing that a winning firm does not genuinely meet the service-disabled veteran requirements, and either can be brought against a veteran’s firm or by it. Once a contract is underway, disputes over performance, payment, changes, and termination run under the Contract Disputes Act and its claim procedures rather than ordinary commercial litigation. None of that is something a military legal office touches, and all of it rewards a lawyer who works in federal procurement specifically.

Who Handles a Veteran’s Federal Contracting Matter

Here the division is unusual, because one side of it is not a lawyer at all. A government contracts attorney does the legal work end to end: the formation, the proposals, the compliance, the protests, and the disputes, all under federal procurement law. The military contribution is the veteran status that unlocks the preference, and the certification that proves it runs through the Small Business Administration rather than any military legal office. A veteran building a federal-contracting business generally needs procurement counsel and an SBA certification, not military legal assistance, which is one of the clearer cases where the civilian professional, and not the base legal office, is the whole answer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a JAG or base legal office help my business win government contracts?
Generally no. Military legal assistance covers a service member’s personal civil legal matters, not a private business venture. Forming a company, preparing federal proposals, and handling contract disputes are commercial matters that fall to a civilian government contracts attorney.

What does being a service-disabled veteran do for federal contracting?
It can qualify a veteran-owned firm for the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business program, under which the government aims to award at least five percent of contracting dollars to these firms, and certain contracts are reserved for them. The Department of Veterans Affairs reserves an even larger share of its own contracts.

Do I still have to be certified, or can I self-certify?
Certification is now required for set-aside and sole-source awards under the program. Self-certification was eliminated at the end of 2024, and a firm must be certified through the Small Business Administration’s VetCert program, which took over the function from the VA in January 2023.

What are the ownership rules for the program?
A service-disabled veteran, or more than one, must own at least fifty-one percent of the business directly and unconditionally, must control its daily operations and long-term decisions, and must have a service-connected disability, which can be at any rating. The company also has to meet the SBA size standard for its industry.

What is a sole-source veteran set-aside?
When a contracting officer does not expect two or more qualified service-disabled veteran-owned firms to compete, the officer can award a contract directly to one such firm without competition, as long as the price is fair and the value stays under a regulatory ceiling. Larger contracts return to open or set-aside competition.

Sources

  • Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Program, Small Business Act § 36 (15 U.S.C. § 657f), and 13 C.F.R. Part 128
  • Government-wide small business contracting goals, 15 U.S.C. § 644(g), with the service-disabled veteran goal raised from three to five percent by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (Pub. L. 118-31, § 863)
  • Small Business Administration, Veteran Small Business Certification (VetCert) program; transfer of certification from the Department of Veterans Affairs effective January 1, 2023 (NDAA for Fiscal Year 2021); elimination of self-certification for goaling purposes under the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2024 (§ 864)
  • Department of Veterans Affairs Vets First Contracting Program
  • Federal Acquisition Regulation, Subpart 19.14 (Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Procurement Program)
  • Contract Disputes Act, 41 U.S.C. §§ 7101 through 7109

Disclaimer

This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Federal procurement rules and certification requirements change over time and apply differently to each business. For guidance on a specific situation, consult a qualified government contracts attorney.

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