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Long story short, I’m leaving a federal job and have to make a tough decision. I have an offer for an in-house job at a very large company that is an exciting opportunity as well as several recent screeners with big law firms. However, I also have an offer from a small USAO (not a major market office). Not excited about moving to the city as I’ve been in the middle of no where already. I guess my question is, how valuable is service as an AUSA, and does it matter about the city you served in?

I don’t really get this dilemma TBH. Hard to imagine work more different than in-house vs being a prosecutor. Do you want to do in-house work or prosecute crimes?

I work as in house counsel for a federal agency and I’m leaving to be an AUSA in a non-major market (returning home). In house is truly boring.

los blancos wrote:I don’t really get this dilemma TBH. Hard to imagine work more different than in-house vs being a prosecutor. Do you want to do in-house work or prosecute crimes?

Yeah, this. If you want to follow a route that includes in-house work, being an AUSA won’t add much. It’s a good gig and valuable experience, but as with everything, it has to be valuable for a particular purpose. It’s not going to further in-house goals, to the extent you have them.

As for the location - it doesn’t matter in itself but it matters to the extent it affects the cases you do. Being an AUSA in SDNY is valuable experience to a lot of law firms because SDNY gets a lot of complex white collar crime and experience doing that is valuable to law firms. In many districts AUSAs do a lot of drug, gun, and child porn cases, which don’t add a lot of value to a law firm. Heck, even if you were at SDNY, if your caseload was all drugs, guns, and CP, you will be a lot less appealing to law firms than AUSAs from the same district with different kind of experience.

On the other hand if you want to go into other criminal-related kinds of work (maybe in DC in main justice) then the AUSA gig will be much more valuable.

So what do you actually want to do, long term?

I wouldn't assume that being an AUSA in a small district will necessarily make you marketable for other jobs, even other USAO/DOJ/fed gov jobs.

Anonymous User wrote:I wouldn't assume that being an AUSA in a small district will necessarily make you marketable for other jobs, even other USAO/DOJ/fed gov jobs.

Eh, speaking as an AUSA, getting experience as an AUSA, even in a small district, is a good way to get into other USAOs or eventually into main justice. You get a ton of responsibility early in a small district. It won't all be in the most "prestigious" of kinds of cases, but it's still good experience for many other offices/parts of main justice. Will it get you into SDNY? Probably not, but there are lots of other jobs out there.

I agree that it isn't necessarily going to translate into non-government jobs especially effectively - it will really depend on the job and your connections and so on.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I wouldn't assume that being an AUSA in a small district will necessarily make you marketable for other jobs, even other USAO/DOJ/fed gov jobs.

Eh, speaking as an AUSA, getting experience as an AUSA, even in a small district, is a good way to get into other USAOs or eventually into main justice. You get a ton of responsibility early in a small district. It won't all be in the most "prestigious" of kinds of cases, but it's still good experience for many other offices/parts of main justice. Will it get you into SDNY? Probably not, but there are lots of other jobs out there.

I agree that it isn't necessarily going to translate into non-government jobs especially effectively - it will really depend on the job and your connections and so on.

I can only speak from my experience. I started in one large, relatively competitive USAO and am about to transfer to another large, relatively competitive USAO for family reasons. In my current district, we get tons of applicants from other offices. Those applicants are viewed favorably as people who understand the job, but I don't think they're hired at a much higher rate than other applicants. And similarly, when I interviewed for my next district, I think it helped that I could talk knowledgeably about the job, but I definitely wasn't treated as a shoo-in.

Being an AUSA actually can be a big boost for in-house positions, but only for certain kinds. Many large companies have internal investigations groups, and AUSAs are shoe-ins for those positions.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I wouldn't assume that being an AUSA in a small district will necessarily make you marketable for other jobs, even other USAO/DOJ/fed gov jobs.

Eh, speaking as an AUSA, getting experience as an AUSA, even in a small district, is a good way to get into other USAOs or eventually into main justice. You get a ton of responsibility early in a small district. It won't all be in the most "prestigious" of kinds of cases, but it's still good experience for many other offices/parts of main justice. Will it get you into SDNY? Probably not, but there are lots of other jobs out there.

I agree that it isn't necessarily going to translate into non-government jobs especially effectively - it will really depend on the job and your connections and so on.

I can only speak from my experience. I started in one large, relatively competitive USAO and am about to transfer to another large, relatively competitive USAO for family reasons. In my current district, we get tons of applicants from other offices. Those applicants are viewed favorably as people who understand the job, but I don't think they're hired at a much higher rate than other applicants. And similarly, when I interviewed for my next district, I think it helped that I could talk knowledgeably about the job, but I definitely wasn't treated as a shoo-in.

Anon you’re responding to. No, no one’s a shoo-in, but having that experience is more helpful than not having it, IME. I say that based on seeing AUSAs leave the offices I’ve been in for either other USAOs or for main justice, and for seeing who’s been hired into the office. Of course offices can vary a lot about this kind of thing.