Biography
Michael Waddington is a criminal defense lawyer and former U.S. Army JAG attorney known for defending high-profile war crimes and military cases worldwide. He has tried cases in courtrooms across the United States, as well as in Japan, South Korea, Germany, Iraq, Bahrain, Italy, and England.
After earning his JD from Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, Waddington served as an Army JAG Corps Officer from 2001–2005, specializing in war crimes and courts-martial. In 2006, he and his wife, Alexandra Gonzalez-Waddington, founded Gonzalez & Waddington, LLC, a global military defense firm dedicated to representing service members in the most serious cases.
Waddington’s career has been defined by his work in some of the most controversial war crimes cases of the post-9/11 era. These cases involved allegations of detainee abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq, the execution of enemy combatants during raids, and battlefield killings later portrayed as war crimes. He has defended soldiers accused of misconduct ranging from battlefield assaults to detainee mistreatment in combat zones.
Many of these cases attracted worldwide media attention and were the subject of major documentaries and films, including the Academy Award-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, the Sundance-winning The Kill Team, Brian De Palma’s Redacted, and CNN’s Killings at the Canal.