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Does anyone have any experience in this practice area? Looks like it's pretty niche & interesting. I'm assuming it leans litigation, not transactional? Also, I'm wondering what the typical exit option would be. Seems like transactional --> in-house / litigation --> gov/more litigations are common. Not sure about government contracts attorneys.

Although I do this from the other side of table, let me take a wild guess that you can end up either as a transactional attorney, a litigator, or both.

Attorneys are likely needed to prepare bids and to advise in contract management and compliance. You also need attorneys to litigate disputes. Usually the disputes are raised by contractors who didn't get a bid.

I like contracts, but I think it's possible this area of law sounds fancier than it really is.

zot1 wrote:Although I do this from the other side of table, let me take a wild guess that you can end up either as a transactional attorney, a litigator, or both.

Attorneys are likely needed to prepare bids and to advise in contract management and compliance. You also need attorneys to litigate disputes. Usually the disputes are raised by contractors who didn't get a bid.

I like contracts, but I think it's possible this area of law sounds fancier than it really is.

I think many people on the outside think that gov Ks sounds dull but stable, so I'd be interested to hear what you like about it.

Yukos wrote:

zot1 wrote:Although I do this from the other side of table, let me take a wild guess that you can end up either as a transactional attorney, a litigator, or both.

Attorneys are likely needed to prepare bids and to advise in contract management and compliance. You also need attorneys to litigate disputes. Usually the disputes are raised by contractors who didn't get a bid.

I like contracts, but I think it's possible this area of law sounds fancier than it really is.

I think many people on the outside think that gov Ks sounds dull but stable, so I'd be interested to hear what you like about it.

From my side of the table, there's just a lot of advising and making sure the contracting officer and everyone else involved is doing things properly. Sometimes this process involves a lot of tedious meetings and grunt work. But I like it because I like contracts in general (getting the language right to get what you need and minimize risk of litigation). For your perspective, it is arguably stable because as long as the government remains, it'll need partners to do business with. As to dull, it probably is unless you derive some benefit from helping your client get the specific contract they were bidding for (yay we can supply toilet paper to this agency for X amount of dollars! So exciting!).

At my firm it runs the gamut from lit to deals and beyond, with some attorneys focusing more on govt investigations and others way more towards either pure lit, pure transactional, or an unpredictable mix of the two. Most folks focus on a particular industry sector, so the people repping universities do entirely different work from those repping defense contractors.