AUSA DOJ LOR Forum

[Anonymous User]

Not sure if anyone here can shed any light but giving it a shot. 'Im about 20 months out from applying to AUSA jobs. Criminal AUSA is my main/only goal. Will have a big law partner (former AUSA), two federal judges I will have clerked for (one former USA) and could probably get a former DOJ attorney professor. But it sounds like the whole thing can hinge on LORs. Any types of letters I should be gunning for in the next year and a half?

[Anonymous User]

Do you mean actual LORs, or do you mean references?

[andythefir]

I've applied to lots of AUSA jobs and never submitted a letter of reference. I have submitted references many times. In my experience, AUSA hiring turns on the whims of the people hiring and pure luck. Some hiring committees love state DAs, others won't touch them. Some essentially require some kind of military experience.

I worked with a guy who had 20 years of federal career clerk experience then became the head of a state DA's office where did murder trials-he got picked up. Another guy had been a state DA for a couple years and a new office opened in the town where he was a DA, he got picked up in a huge wave of hiring for the new office. Career clerk + major trials will almost certainly get you in somewhere. Random state DA needs luck.

AUSAs aren't like big law, there aren't big, predictable classes. You don't know what the hiring people want, you don't know when they'll have openings, and you don't know when you can actually start even if they want you. A friend that went federal got hired in April but didn't start until September.

[Anonymous User]

OP. Thanks for the response. I guess the office I'm targeting must be an outlier. But I know people who got hired last year and 15 years ago and each of hem had to submit LORs after the initial stage, and prior to getting interviewed. Guess it's an idiosyncratic office.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, I've never seen anyone have to submit letters, either, so that is a bit unusual.

WRT your list, the only thing I can think of is someone who's actually worked for that USAO (which your list may already contain), and someone who can speak directly to your trial abilities (which your list might also already contain). The DOJ prof isn't crucial because main justice is pretty removed from most USAOs, but more people saying good things about you always helps.

Keep in mind it's very difficult to predict when any given office will have an opening, so broadening your scope to additional offices might be helpful (then when your preferred office has an opening you'd have lots of really pertinent experience).

[Anonymous User]

Huh, that's strange. I'm a current criminal AUSA, and I never had to submit LORs to any of the offices that interviewed me. But I imagine that the person who writes the letter isn't as important as the things he or she says about you (assuming the person worked closely with you and can credibly speak about those things). Just based on the qualities that are generally valued in an AUSA, you probably want your recommenders to write about your moral judgment, your ability to self-manage, your ability to work well under pressure, and your ability to work well in a team setting. Two of your proposed recommenders have worked in USAOs, so they can probably write convincingly about whether you possess those qualities to a sufficient degree. I'd say you're good to go.

[Anonymous User]

SDNY requires letters. Choose wisely.