DOJ Honors or SEC Chair's Honors? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi everyone,

I need help deciding between two offers from the DOJ Honors Program and the SEC Chair's Honors Program. I am not comfortable giving too many details, but I am wracked with anxiety trying to decide ASAP and am hoping you all can help. I am especially curious about future career opportunities inside or outside of government.

Thank you!

[A. Nony Mouse]

Which component of DOJ?

[Anonymous User]

Just messaged you. Thanks.

[zot1]

It depends of what DOJ unit and what your interests are.

I'd probably go with SEC because they pay more.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a current SEC attorney and I worked with a lot of DOJ Civil Division attorneys at my last job so I'm pretty familiar with DOJ. The SEC is significantly better financially. I know it sounds strange to consider salaries when you're thinking of government jobs, but it really is a huge difference. At DOJ you start out at around 65k and get promoted to around 110k before you slowly creep up to 136k over around 10 years. And you have standard gov't benefits including a terrible loan repayment program. At the SEC you start at around 100k and then rapidly go to 130k and then go up to around 200k over around 10 years. In addition, you get one of the best loan repayment programs in the government that pretty much gives you another 10k a year for 6 years and works with PAYE, a 3% retirement match above the standard 5%, free vision and dental along with a significant additional subsidy to healthcare beyond the standard government subsidy. This all adds up to a huge amount of money over time, and means that by the time you might be thinking of leaving for the private sector, your SEC salary and benefits will actually be very competitive with in-house positions and there may not be a reason for you to leave.

And if you do choose to leave, you will have excellent exit options (generally better than from the DOJ, but this might depend on the DOJ division) from nearly any operational division although they will only be to securities law or compliance positions. DOJ definitely has better exit options to other government agencies (including to the SEC, which loves former DOJ attorneys for the elite "trial attorney" positions) and offers a broader variety of exit options to the private sector although I don't think it can match the SEC's revolving door to the financial industry.

I do think if you're interested in litigation though, the DOJ is a far better choice. There are very few attorneys at the SEC, including in Enforcement, who do real litigation. Most enforcement attorneys do only the investigative portion of a case, and most other attorneys in the agency work on rule-making or advising examiners. The few people with trial attorney positions in my office came from DOJ (and were attracted to the higher SEC pay and benefits). The attorneys that I worked with at DOJ at my last job were all doing real litigation and loved their jobs--but hated the compensation. The work at the SEC is very interesting at most divisions and you will learn a ton about the industry--but don't expect to do real litigation for many years.

[grand inquisitor]

this question can't be addressed more adequately than anon above unless you give the components. for instance, I would give very different advice if you had offers to corp. finance at SEC and civil division at DOJ than if you had offers to enforcement at SEC and BOP at DOJ.