ACC Chief Counsel Employees Win Individual Army Awards
Lt. Col. Shawn Peterson, 409th Contracting Support Brigade Command Judge Advocate, and Kathleen Kelly, chief of ACC OCC business law, won the 2026 Judge Advocate Legal Services (JALS) award for excellence. Toby Davis, ACC OCC chief of the general law division, won a Sustained Outstanding Civilian Career (SOCC) award.
Maj. Gen. Bobby Christine, the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Army, came online on a Microsoft Teams call on the morning of August 24, 2026 to surprise Peterson and again the following day to surprise the current ACC headquarters recipients with the awards in front of their peers, chief counsel leaders, and the ACC deputy to the commanding general, Dan Gallagher.
Kelly serves as the Army’s legal representative on the Defense Acquisitions Regulations Council and co-chair of the Army Federal Acquisition Regulation 2.0 Attorney Team. In these positions, she routinely engages with Department of War and interagency partners to shape critical acquisition policies, streamline regulatory framework, and strengthen statutory compliance. This was most notable in her efforts to resolve a complex regulatory bottleneck that will save the Army profound amounts of time, resources, and potential litigation risk from pauses in contract performance related to bid protests, as she recognized that no other military service required certain restrictions and used her co-chair position to amend and remove the restrictive factors by amending the governing regulation.
Davis revitalized the ACC ethics program, making the entire program more engaging by using an “I Love Ethics” theme, achieving overall workforce compliance with a 100 percent increase of early completion from the previous year. He is also pioneering artificial intelligence into legal operations through two web-based applications. In addition to his legal duties, he also stepped into critical leadership gaps throughout the ACC enterprise over the last year.
Christine recognized Peterson, Davis and Kelly, listing their individual contributions and outstanding leadership, as well as giving them an opportunity to speak and acknowledge their teammates and the entire ACC chief counsel program as a whole for its success in the Army.
Across the Army for 2026, there are ten awardees for the JALS award for excellence and six awardees for the SOCC award. ACC has received three of those sixteen awards in 2026.
Although Peterson has since transitioned to be the chief of fiscal law at U.S. Army Europe and Africa, his award and contributions were also acknowledged as another significant part of the ACC team. Peterson led the effort while at the 409th CSB to expand the use of Other Transaction Authority agreements as a test case for implementing new Department of War policy. His work became a key resource for Army transformation and the Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate support model. His sustained support positioned him as the principal legal advisor to an expanding group of clients delivering cutting-edge technologies for operational use in both Operation Epic Fury and across Eastern Europe.
“We are fortunate at ACC to have a lot of great people, but it’s the leaders that make a great team. Toby, Kathy and Shawn are incredibly skilled attorneys, and it is their leadership that makes the entire ACC legal enterprise a tremendous team,” said Robert Teutsch, chief counsel, ACC.
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