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(Anon because posting in multiple forums, don’t want accounts to get linked, etc.)

Current big law lit jr. associate considering a jump to a position at a reputable non-profit, where I would get some stand-up court experience. I want to ultimately end up a prosecutor’s office, but the ones I’m interested in working at aren’t hiring right now.

It seems intuitive to me that going to the non-profit won’t hurt my chances of going to a prosecutor’s office (and might even help), but I wanted a sanity check before making such a big jump.

Thanks all!

I’m a prosecutor - I don’t think it would hurt you, but it would depend a little on what the non-profit was. You might have to do some explaining if you applied from the ACLU or an immigrants’ rights project or Innocence project or the like (although it doesn’t really sound like you would be since I’m not sure any of them would give you a lot of stand-up court experience). Ironically I don’t think straight up criminal defense would raise much of an eyebrow, because it’s a great way to get court experience and it means you would understand the criminal justice system, just from the other side. But some non-profit type places are more fundamentally opposed to government policies, and they might raise some concern.