Michelle A. Poore

Michelle A. Poore is an associate general counsel for the Missile Defense Agency, Department of Defense where her portfolio includes arms control, international agreements, national security law, and export control.

Ms. Poore retired from the U.S. Army in 2015 after serving 20 years, initially as a French horn player and then as a Judge Advocate. Her culminating military assignment was Deputy of the International and Operational Law Division at the Department of the Army, Office of the Judge Advocate General, where she had previously served as the Chief, International Law Branch.

Prior to these assignments, Ms. Poore was an Assistant Legal Counsel at the Joint Chiefs of Staff where she served on several U.S. delegations on arms control and provided advice on the law of war for litigation involving the detention of enemy combatants. Her other assignments include Assistant Staff Judge Advocate (Intelligence Law), U.S. Southern Command; Assistant Staff Judge Advocate, Joint Task Force – Guantanamo; Chief, Administrative Law, Fort Riley, Kansas; Defense Counsel, Fort Gordon, Georgia; Chief, Operational Law, 3d Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Georgia; and Chief, Criminal Law Division and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, Fort Eustis, Virginia. She deployed with the 3d Infantry Division for Operation Iraqi Freedom I and provided legal advice on the law of war, targeting, and rules of engagement during the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

After retirement from military service, Ms. Poore served as Counsel to the Inspector General at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. She is the author of “Preventing the Emasculation of Warfare: Halting the Expansion of Human Rights Law into Armed Conflict,” in the Military Law Review, Volume 194, Winter 2007, and “A Call for Uncle Sam to Get Big Brother Out of Our Knickers,” in the Northern Kentucky Law Review, Volume 40, Number 3.