Re: AUSA/USAO hiring
Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2017 2:48 pm
Is it at all a plus to have taken numerous federal criminal law classes in law school? (Assuming clerkship, T14, biglaw etc.)
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I can't imagine that coming up in an interview, and if it did, that means the interview is going badly. If you have to reference something you learned in law school, that means you're likely to need babysitting, which is the worst impression you can give. I could see a very small exception if your schtick is "I've done a billion felony jury trials, and you can trust me to learn white collar prosecution quickly because I have a degree in accounting." I've done multiple interviews for AUSA positions, including callbacks, and I don't think I talked about my law school experience at all beyond pleasantries.Anonymous User wrote:Is it at all a plus to have taken numerous federal criminal law classes in law school? (Assuming clerkship, T14, biglaw etc.)
This is really helpful. Do people have insight as to what someone who is coming straight through law school would need to have a decent shot at an USAO? Obviously a clerkship (I'd imagine a district clerkship would be the most useful if you had to pick one) but, if you are coming from a good school, what kind of grades do you need to have? Is a journal preferable/deal-breaker? What kind of classes should you try and take? I am asking as a 1L who hopes to go to the USAO after graduation and a clerkship and wanted to know what I should be focusing on over the next two years to make myself the best candidate I can be. Thanks!Anonymous User wrote:I know people who've done clerkships and got hired at USAOs without trial experience. But it's very candidate/office specific.
I don't think it hurts to take a lot of federal criminal law stuff, but not because your interviewer will care. I actually took almost no criminal stuff in law school (what can I say, career goals change) and I kinda wish I had; I do feel like the little bit of pertinent stuff I did take made it more helpful to learn some of the legal stuff. It doesn't tell you how to run a case but it can help when you're facing sentencings or motions to suppress or the like. And if you're at a school that doesn't require evidence I can't imagine starting a criminal position without having had evidence (my school required it but I know some don't).
That said, I don't think it's going to give you an edge in getting a job and you may forget it all anyway.
This is very very very rare outside of Honors. Which is a whole thing in and of itself and I'd just recommend doing research on DOJ Honors. Extremely complex but is populated largely by people straight from law school to clerkships (pretty sure you have to be within 2 years of law school to be eligible). Grades are number one (obviously) as the are a pre-req for clerkships AND honors. Top 1/3d at a minimum, I would guess.KingWolf72 wrote:This is really helpful. Do people have insight as to what someone who is coming straight through law school would need to have a decent shot at an USAO? Obviously a clerkship (I'd imagine a district clerkship would be the most useful if you had to pick one) but, if you are coming from a good school, what kind of grades do you need to have? Is a journal preferable/deal-breaker? What kind of classes should you try and take? I am asking as a 1L who hopes to go to the USAO after graduation and a clerkship and wanted to know what I should be focusing on over the next two years to make myself the best candidate I can be. Thanks!Anonymous User wrote:I know people who've done clerkships and got hired at USAOs without trial experience. But it's very candidate/office specific.
I don't think it hurts to take a lot of federal criminal law stuff, but not because your interviewer will care. I actually took almost no criminal stuff in law school (what can I say, career goals change) and I kinda wish I had; I do feel like the little bit of pertinent stuff I did take made it more helpful to learn some of the legal stuff. It doesn't tell you how to run a case but it can help when you're facing sentencings or motions to suppress or the like. And if you're at a school that doesn't require evidence I can't imagine starting a criminal position without having had evidence (my school required it but I know some don't).
That said, I don't think it's going to give you an edge in getting a job and you may forget it all anyway.
Care to elaborate? Seems like a pretty prestigious gig to me.Anonymous User wrote:. . . it's often not as prestigious as people here seem to think.)
I should preface this by saying I don't work at SDNY or in a major major metro, so those offices are probably different. And I suppose it's prestigious in that they're hard jobs to get, and you get to stand up in federal court and say you represent the United States (and don't get me wrong, that actually really matters to me).gregfootball2001 wrote:Care to elaborate? Seems like a pretty prestigious gig to me.Anonymous User wrote:. . . it's often not as prestigious as people here seem to think.)
Prestigious because the job is desirable, desirable because the job is cool compared to other legal jobs. Trials once in awhile, working in the public interest, no billing. Doesn't hurt that in the market I'm most familiar with AUSAs make roughly 2X what top DA/AG employees make. I also don't buy prestigious defined as fun or interesting all the time. How many firms, especially top firms, fit that definition?gregfootball2001 wrote:Care to elaborate? Seems like a pretty prestigious gig to me.Anonymous User wrote:. . . it's often not as prestigious as people here seem to think.)
I'm not buying the 2x salary claim... It's unlikely "top DA/AG"s are making $35,000-$40,000.andythefir wrote:Prestigious because the job is desirable, desirable because the job is cool compared to other legal jobs. Trials once in awhile, working in the public interest, no billing. Doesn't hurt that in the market I'm most familiar with AUSAs make roughly 2X what top DA/AG employees make. I also don't buy prestigious defined as fun or interesting all the time. How many firms, especially top firms, fit that definition?gregfootball2001 wrote:Care to elaborate? Seems like a pretty prestigious gig to me.Anonymous User wrote:. . . it's often not as prestigious as people here seem to think.)
Anon who said "not as prestigious as TLSers think" - I agree with all those things and they're absolutely reasons why it's a good gig. I don't think any of those things are what your average TLSer thinks about when they say "prestigious." I don't think prestige has anything to do with being fun or interesting - biglaw is considered one of the most prestigious gigs and for most people it's neither of those things. Prestige is about money and fancy offices and big names on your cases and complex matters and being a "professional" and a certain kind of signaling to other lawyers. (I also think biglaw is generally prestigious to the average person even though they will tend to think all firms are biglaw.)andythefir wrote:Prestigious because the job is desirable, desirable because the job is cool compared to other legal jobs. Trials once in awhile, working in the public interest, no billing. Doesn't hurt that in the market I'm most familiar with AUSAs make roughly 2X what top DA/AG employees make. I also don't buy prestigious defined as fun or interesting all the time. How many firms, especially top firms, fit that definition?gregfootball2001 wrote:Care to elaborate? Seems like a pretty prestigious gig to me.Anonymous User wrote:. . . it's often not as prestigious as people here seem to think.)
You could also just say they're striver assholes and I hope they tend to get weeded out in the process in favor of people that actually want to serve the public.Anonymous User wrote:most people on this site are really only considering big city AUSA gigs which tend to lead into biglaw partnership etc.
Former state prosecutor, current AUSA. I make almost double what i made as a state prosecutor. 45k-->88kMrT wrote:I'm not buying the 2x salary claim... It's unlikely "top DA/AG"s are making $35,000-$40,000.andythefir wrote:Prestigious because the job is desirable, desirable because the job is cool compared to other legal jobs. Trials once in awhile, working in the public interest, no billing. Doesn't hurt that in the market I'm most familiar with AUSAs make roughly 2X what top DA/AG employees make. I also don't buy prestigious defined as fun or interesting all the time. How many firms, especially top firms, fit that definition?gregfootball2001 wrote:Care to elaborate? Seems like a pretty prestigious gig to me.Anonymous User wrote:. . . it's often not as prestigious as people here seem to think.)
https://www.justice.gov/usao/career-cen ... lan-charts
Totally agree with everything you said. But as an AUSA who does white-collar stuff in a flyover district, I'm surprised by the example you used. I'd give anything to have a case against a real-estate dude committing mortgage fraud when I'm arraigning the 60-year-old woman who failed to report that she remarried and continued to cash her social-security checks. So prestigious!Anonymous User wrote:...gregfootball2001 wrote:Care to elaborate? Seems like a pretty prestigious gig to me.Anonymous User wrote:. . . it's often not as prestigious as people here seem to think.)
But a lot of the work (in many offices) is pretty routine, low-level stuff - still interesting and an opportunity to learn a ton, still valuable and worth doing, but it's not prestigious work in itself. Like, a dumb alcoholic defendant buying her scumbag felon ex-boyfriend a gun can be a really fun case to try, but it's not the slightest bit fancy. In my office, even the white collar stuff is often more depressing than prestigious (small time real estate dude committing mortgage fraud locally isn't a headline-grabber).
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This mortgage fraud case has been going on since before I got into the office and finally went to trial recently. It's a DOOZY.Anonymous User wrote:Totally agree with everything you said. But as an AUSA who does white-collar stuff in a flyover district, I'm surprised by the example you used. I'd give anything to have a case against a real-estate dude committing mortgage fraud when I'm arraigning the 60-year-old woman who failed to report that she remarried and continued to cash her social-security checks. So prestigious!Anonymous User wrote:...gregfootball2001 wrote:Care to elaborate? Seems like a pretty prestigious gig to me.Anonymous User wrote:. . . it's often not as prestigious as people here seem to think.)
But a lot of the work (in many offices) is pretty routine, low-level stuff - still interesting and an opportunity to learn a ton, still valuable and worth doing, but it's not prestigious work in itself. Like, a dumb alcoholic defendant buying her scumbag felon ex-boyfriend a gun can be a really fun case to try, but it's not the slightest bit fancy. In my office, even the white collar stuff is often more depressing than prestigious (small time real estate dude committing mortgage fraud locally isn't a headline-grabber).
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YMMV, as always, and clearly it did with the previous poster, but I want to offer a counter to this. When I interviewed for USAO/DOJ jobs, law school federal criminal classes did come up. Once, it was specifically asked, along the lines of, "you say that you've been interested in this since law school, but you didn't take a clinic, so did you at least take classes relating to federal criminal law?" Another time, I brought it up in response to a question that seemed aimed at probing my commitment to becoming a prosecutor (since my biglaw experience was more in civil litigation).Anonymous User wrote:I can't imagine that coming up in an interview, and if it did, that means the interview is going badly. If you have to reference something you learned in law school, that means you're likely to need babysitting, which is the worst impression you can give. I could see a very small exception if your schtick is "I've done a billion felony jury trials, and you can trust me to learn white collar prosecution quickly because I have a degree in accounting." I've done multiple interviews for AUSA positions, including callbacks, and I don't think I talked about my law school experience at all beyond pleasantries.Anonymous User wrote:Is it at all a plus to have taken numerous federal criminal law classes in law school? (Assuming clerkship, T14, biglaw etc.)
This is a joke rightAnonymous User wrote:any protocol for following up or should i let it ride? sent app Jan 1; on Jan 4, got email notifying me resumes for AUSA positions are being reviewed for interviews. not sure if hiring freeze applies to AUSAs...