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I'm considering applying to a staff attorney position for a federal circuit court, but they mention a background check for accepted candidates. Is this sort of check usually just like a criminal background search / credit check, etc.? Or is it like SF-86, full, comprehensive all-about-you kind of thing? I ask because I've recently spent some time in the Netherlands in the last few years and when I'm there, I've smoked pot. Not a problem or need not apply? Thoughts? Thanks.

Apply and . . . tell the truth?

Anonymous User wrote:I'm considering applying to a staff attorney position for a federal circuit court, but they mention a background check for accepted candidates. Is this sort of check usually just like a criminal background search / credit check, etc.? Or is it like SF-86, full, comprehensive all-about-you kind of thing? I ask because I've recently spent some time in the Netherlands in the last few years and when I'm there, I've smoked pot. Not a problem or need not apply? Thoughts? Thanks.

If you have only smoked weed in the netherlands you should be fine. Any state-side pot smoking and you are toast.

Generally more like the criminal background search: no one interviews you or anyone else. The forms you fill out might have a question asking whether you've used any illegal drugs (rather than just about arrests/convictions), but the background check itself probably wouldn't turn up anything.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm considering applying to a staff attorney position for a federal circuit court, but they mention a background check for accepted candidates. Is this sort of check usually just like a criminal background search / credit check, etc.? Or is it like SF-86, full, comprehensive all-about-you kind of thing? I ask because I've recently spent some time in the Netherlands in the last few years and when I'm there, I've smoked pot. Not a problem or need not apply? Thoughts? Thanks.

For the record, I disclosed my Amsterdam pot smoking on my actual SF86 and it was fine.

RaceJudicata wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'm considering applying to a staff attorney position for a federal circuit court, but they mention a background check for accepted candidates. Is this sort of check usually just like a criminal background search / credit check, etc.? Or is it like SF-86, full, comprehensive all-about-you kind of thing? I ask because I've recently spent some time in the Netherlands in the last few years and when I'm there, I've smoked pot. Not a problem or need not apply? Thoughts? Thanks.

If you have only smoked weed in the netherlands you should be fine. Any state-side pot smoking and you are toast.

Really? For a staff attorney position at a federal circuit court? My only experience with this kind of thing is applying as a term clerk to a federal judge, and I don't recall any questions about drug use. I assumed that a staff attorney at the court would go through the same (or at least a similar) application process. I know that there are federal government positions (e.g., DOJ) that ask for detailed information about past drug use, but I didn't think that court staff attorneys were in that category.

rpupkin wrote:

RaceJudicata wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'm considering applying to a staff attorney position for a federal circuit court, but they mention a background check for accepted candidates. Is this sort of check usually just like a criminal background search / credit check, etc.? Or is it like SF-86, full, comprehensive all-about-you kind of thing? I ask because I've recently spent some time in the Netherlands in the last few years and when I'm there, I've smoked pot. Not a problem or need not apply? Thoughts? Thanks.

If you have only smoked weed in the netherlands you should be fine. Any state-side pot smoking and you are toast.

Really? For a staff attorney position at a federal circuit court? My only experience with this kind of thing is applying as a term clerk to a federal judge, and I don't recall any questions about drug use. I assumed that a staff attorney at the court would go through the same (or at least a similar) application process. I know that there are federal government positions (e.g., DOJ) that ask for detailed information about past drug use, but I didn't think that court staff attorneys were in that category.

I was making a (unclear) joke. I doubt they ask about drug use, and if they did, the location of the drug use would be the least of their concerns. "Yes, I tried heroin 4 or 5 times, but did so in xyz lawless country where its legal, so no big deal, right?"

RaceJudicata wrote:

rpupkin wrote:

RaceJudicata wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I'm considering applying to a staff attorney position for a federal circuit court, but they mention a background check for accepted candidates. Is this sort of check usually just like a criminal background search / credit check, etc.? Or is it like SF-86, full, comprehensive all-about-you kind of thing? I ask because I've recently spent some time in the Netherlands in the last few years and when I'm there, I've smoked pot. Not a problem or need not apply? Thoughts? Thanks.

If you have only smoked weed in the netherlands you should be fine. Any state-side pot smoking and you are toast.

Really? For a staff attorney position at a federal circuit court? My only experience with this kind of thing is applying as a term clerk to a federal judge, and I don't recall any questions about drug use. I assumed that a staff attorney at the court would go through the same (or at least a similar) application process. I know that there are federal government positions (e.g., DOJ) that ask for detailed information about past drug use, but I didn't think that court staff attorneys were in that category.

I was making a (unclear) joke.

Ha! I've seen so much overwrought advice re drug use on TLS that I missed the joke.

Thanks all! I appreciate the input and humor.

-OP