SF City Attorney Forum

[Anonymous User]

A friend mentioned that the San Francisco City Attorney's Office might be hiring. Don't know much about the office, so does anyone have info about what it's like to work there? Are some units better than others? Is it considered prestigious/comparable to say AUSA NDCA? What are the exit options? Any info would be appreciated.

[VeryLowBar]

Do you even know what the City Attorney does? If asked "why this field" during interview, what would you say? I would suggest start your research there.

[JOThompson]

A criminal AUSA position in northern California is going to be much more prestigious, if that's what you're concerned about.

You'll want to be pretty knowledgeable and have good explanations for 1) why are you interested in that type of law? 2) why that office? 2) why San Francisco? It's going to be highly competitive.

Here's one of their recent job announcements: https://www.lawcrossing.com/job/id-eb7e ... um=organic

[Anonymous User]

A criminal AUSA position in northern California is going to be much more prestigious, if that's what you're concerned about.

You'll want to be pretty knowledgeable and have good explanations for 1) why are you interested in that type of law? 2) why that office? 2) why San Francisco? It's going to be highly competitive.

Here's one of their recent job announcements: https://www.lawcrossing.com/job/id-eb7e ... um=organic

I think this depends on what group you are aiming for. The Complex & Affirmative Lit group at the SFCAO is surely on par with the NDCA, and hiring credentials might be higher. Most of their hires have clerked + worked in SF biglaw. Keker seems to place particularly well, for example. And they can hire at such a high level because the work is tremendously interesting, and the pay is on par with an AUSA. At one point they had something like five supreme court clerks working in that group.

The rest of the office isn't quite to that level in terms of credentials, but I think it would be a great place to work. The pay is excellent, and even folks doing things like code enforcement seem to work on an interesting mix of things.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the info. To follow up: What’s the trial unit like? How does that compare to Complex and Affirmative? Is there an appellate unit? And what are the exit options? Is reputation local or beyond?

[QContinuum]

Do you even know what the City Attorney does? If asked "why this field" during interview, what would you say? I would suggest start your research there.

Well, it looks like OP's starting their research right here on TLS. So please share any info you may have regarding what the City Attorney does.

[Anonymous User]

I don't see the point in comparing the U.S. Attorney's Office and the City Attorney's Office. Maybe USAO-Civil and the CAO's Trial Team are loosely similar in that they're both defending government clients against tort suits, but otherwise the two offices just play different roles. And they're both very well respected, as evidenced by the attorneys who move from one to the other: the recent Acting U.S. Attorney was a CAO alum, for example, and one of the CAO's senior attorneys is the former chief of the USAO's Oakland office.

Other CAO alumni include multiple judges (one federal; several state), multiple state legislators, Governor Newsom's chief of staff, and Senator Harris (not that anyone attributes her career to the CAO, but still). I don't think it holds you back.

Other exit options run the gamut, so they're a little hard to pin down. Some people go to small-ish local firms (e.g., Durie Tangri) or in-house at local companies; some people go to major nonprofits; some people go to other jobs in state or local government. Lots of people stay for a long time.

The City Attorney's Office has a lot of different teams that do a lot of different things, but in general it makes sense to split the office into "advice" roles and "litigation" roles.

On the litigation side, there's the Complex and Affirmative Team (which, as noted above, is relatively famous; it did the same-sex marriage cases and the sanctuary city cases, for example), the Trial Team (which does general tort defense: 1983 suits, etc.), the Code Enforcement Team (which enforces City ordinances against bad actors like slumlords, etc.), the Government Litigation Team (which defends the validity of City ordinances and other governmental actions, like permit decisions), and the Child and Family Team (which is pretty specialized; it conducts juvenile dependency proceedings).

There are a few attorneys in the office with an appellate focus, but the general rule has been that trial attorneys tend to keep their appeals.

On the advice side, a lot of the teams are more specialized, and many are best thought of as general counsel to certain particularly specialized departments (like the Airport, the PUC, or the Department of Public Health). The generalist advice-side teams are the Government Team and its close cousin the Ethics and Elections Team; together, they serve as general counsel to most City officials and departments (including the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, SFPD, RecPark, etc.). A lot of this work is relatively fast-moving, mission-specific legal advice driven by the particular needs of the official or department in question; it also includes things like preparing legislation.

There are also teams that don't fit neatly into this dichotomy, like the Labor Team (which defends against labor and employment actions by current/former City employees, and also conducts collective bargaining, and also advises on employee discipline and serves as general counsel to the Department of Human Resources) and the Land Use Team (which, among other things, advises the Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors on land use decisions, and also litigates in defense of those decisions). And there's definitely at some flexibility in terms of cross-team assignments.

Everyone in the office is very well paid by government standards (though of course San Francisco's cost of living is high), and most parts of the office also enjoy good work-life balance. (There tends to be a bit of a tradeoff between doing cool work and enjoying good work-life balance, but that's probably true anywhere.) On the litigation side, a major advantage of the office is that you can get a lot of experience, and take on a lot of responsibility, very quickly (and often on cases that are righteous and/or interesting). On the advice side, you play an important role in the inner workings of a major American city, which feels important, and which can be fun and/or good for networking (if that's your thing).

Your particular experience might vary a lot depending on your particular team. But honestly, it's a lot of fun.

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone know how the hiring process works? There never seem to be openings on the website but looking through Linkedin, it seems like a number of people have recently joined the office.

[foreversport]

A friend mentioned that the San Francisco City Attorney's Office might be hiring. Don't know much about the office, so does anyone have info about what it's like to work there? Are some units better than others? Is it considered prestigious/comparable to say AUSA NDCA? What are the exit options? Any info would be appreciated.

Where did you see this posting? Doesn't look to me like they are hiring right now, based on their website.

[Anonymous User]

As OP said, "A friend mentioned that the San Francisco City Attorney's Office might be hiring."