HUD Legal Honor Taking Questions Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm not the original poster but I'm a recent HUD Legal Honor who's willing to answer questions!

What is the reference checking process? Do they check all of your references or just some of them?

[Anonymous User]

I'm a recent US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Legal Honors member, and I wanted to put this thread out there in case any prospective HUD legal honors had questions I could help with.

In my case, I found a decent amount of info about the application process a TLS forum, but it was very difficult to find out about what it was like to be a legal honors at HUD. Even if this post is many years old, I'll still try to answer any questions someone might have!

Do you know how feasible it is to transition into HUD after working a few years in BigLaw (real estate) straight out of law school?

Before, it was very difficult because HUD relied on the Legal Honors program for most of its attorney recruiting. Now, the recently hired career folks (as opposed to political appointees) who run the day to day have shifted to hiring more laterals, so it's probably easier now than before. That said, lateral openings are still pretty rare because the Legal Honors program still exists, lots of attorneys at HUD are lifers, and the recent surge in lateral hirings can be in-part explained by the lapse of the Legal Honors program that occurred a few years ago (they're probably hiring lots of laterals now to make up for the lack of incoming legal honors they missed out on those years due to budget constraints).

In summary, it's possible, but not guaranteed. It seems like they do like laterals with real estate openings background to fill the programs/transactional side of things (there are generally two types of HUD attorneys: litigation [civil rights, defending agency, personnel work, administraitve law, etc.] and programs/transactional [working with private transactional counsel seeking HUD insurance of real estate projects and making sure HUD's regulatory requirements and fiscal interests are upheld in all the transactional documents involved]).

[Anonymous User]

I'm not the original poster but I'm a recent HUD Legal Honor who's willing to answer questions!

What is the reference checking process? Do they check all of your references or just some of them?

If I recall correctly, I don't think all of my references were checked. But when they checked my reference (or two), my interviewing office simply followed a script, wrote down notes from the call, and sent the notes down to the hiring folks in DC.

[Anonymous User]

I'm not the original poster but I'm a recent HUD Legal Honor who's willing to answer questions!

Do you know of any current HUD employees in policy roles that were able to transition to attorney jobs after working at HUD for a few years?

Would love to chat about this with you.

Not that I know of, sorry. I do know that there is a revolving door between HUD and the state/local housing & community development authorities/agencies in some cities, though. So that might be an option worth exploring.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a recent US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Legal Honors member, and I wanted to put this thread out there in case any prospective HUD legal honors had questions I could help with.

In my case, I found a decent amount of info about the application process a TLS forum, but it was very difficult to find out about what it was like to be a legal honors at HUD. Even if this post is many years old, I'll still try to answer any questions someone might have!

Do you know how feasible it is to transition into HUD after working a few years in BigLaw (real estate) straight out of law school?

Before, it was very difficult because HUD relied on the Legal Honors program for most of its attorney recruiting. Now, the recently hired career folks (as opposed to political appointees) who run the day to day have shifted to hiring more laterals, so it's probably easier now than before. That said, lateral openings are still pretty rare because the Legal Honors program still exists, lots of attorneys at HUD are lifers, and the recent surge in lateral hirings can be in-part explained by the lapse of the Legal Honors program that occurred a few years ago (they're probably hiring lots of laterals now to make up for the lack of incoming legal honors they missed out on those years due to budget constraints).

In summary, it's possible, but not guaranteed. It seems like they do like laterals with real estate openings background to fill the programs/transactional side of things (there are generally two types of HUD attorneys: litigation [civil rights, defending agency, personnel work, administraitve law, etc.] and programs/transactional [working with private transactional counsel seeking HUD insurance of real estate projects and making sure HUD's regulatory requirements and fiscal interests are upheld in all the transactional documents involved]).

Thanks for the info! I saw some hiring, and I struck out on a few interviews. Any idea if there will be more hiring in the next few months?

[lawregis]

I'm not the original poster but I'm a recent HUD Legal Honor who's willing to answer questions!

What is the reference checking process? Do they check all of your references or just some of them?

If I recall correctly, I don't think all of my references were checked. But when they checked my reference (or two), my interviewing office simply followed a script, wrote down notes from the call, and sent the notes down to the hiring folks in DC.

Thank you for your response. How long it takes between checking references and the offer? Do they only check those they want to extend offers? Or lots of selections and competitions are still down the line?

[Anonymous User]

I'm not the original poster but I'm a recent HUD Legal Honor who's willing to answer questions!

What is the reference checking process? Do they check all of your references or just some of them?

If I recall correctly, I don't think all of my references were checked. But when they checked my reference (or two), my interviewing office simply followed a script, wrote down notes from the call, and sent the notes down to the hiring folks in DC.

Thank you for your response. How long it takes between checking references and the offer? Do they only check those they want to extend offers? Or lots of selections and competitions are still down the line?

I don't remember. But I remember that getting your references checked was a very good sign and that you're facing quite a small ratio at that point.

I found this video very informative when going through the process, and I think she discussed the significance of getting to the point of reference checks. Not sure how much things have changed since the time of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeTcovgutvE&t=1917s

[Anonymous User]

I'm not the original poster but I'm a recent HUD Legal Honor who's willing to answer questions!

What is the reference checking process? Do they check all of your references or just some of them?

If I recall correctly, I don't think all of my references were checked. But when they checked my reference (or two), my interviewing office simply followed a script, wrote down notes from the call, and sent the notes down to the hiring folks in DC.

Thank you for your response. How long it takes between checking references and the offer? Do they only check those they want to extend offers? Or lots of selections and competitions are still down the line?

I don't remember. But I remember that getting your references checked was a very good sign and that you're facing quite a small ratio at that point.

I found this video very informative when going through the process, and I think she discussed the significance of getting to the point of reference checks. Not sure how much things have changed since the time of this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeTcovgutvE&t=1917s

[Anonymous User]

Do you happen to know whether this year's offer was extended?