Rural AUSA positions? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Student here, starting to get disenchanted with the idea of biglaw. I have strong connections to a lower-population Western state. What does the path look like to get an AUSA role in these regions (ideally focused on prosecuting major crimes act cases in Indian Country)? T6, above-median, no loans. Our career services doesn't have much guidance (very focused on the coasts, obviously).

Also, what do these roles look like lifestyle-wise? I assume not as soul-crushing as biglaw, but otherwise don't have much of an idea

[Anonymous User]

I am familiar with two USAOs in the non-coastal West, but both are still in more populated/competitive areas than you seem to be describing. I'm sure hiring varies a lot from office to office, but in smaller offices connections can become much more important. From a T6 with above median grades and ties, you would be a good candidate to clerk for a local D. Ct. judge. If you can land a spot with one that was a former AUSA, all the better. The most direct path (barring a rare opening for a first-year attorney at the USAO) would be to clerk, work in the DA's office for a few years and get some trial experience, then pivot to the USAO. Working for a top-tier local shop is also an option, but I think in smaller markets the DA-USAO pipeline is generally stronger. You'll generally be prosecuting gun crimes, drug busts, and sex trafficking. Indian Country is a different story--there you'll get more violent crimes.

I think work-life balance varies quite a bit from office to office and will depend largely on your caseload. As far as how soul-crushing it is, it depends on what you have a stomach for. Sure, you're doing public service, but you're also dealing with incredibly unfortunate people in incredibly difficult situations. I know a couple of prosecutors who have worked Indian Country and have described it as particularly dire.

[Anonymous User]

Warning, rambling ahead: I used to work in an district that had a lot of Indian country (and was not a PL-280 state). The work is really tough because it’s a lot of violent crime, DUIs, and child sex abuse, in what are frequently very poor communities with members who don’t always have great relationships with law enforcement. It is in many ways more like state prosecution than a lot of other kinds of cases you get at USAOs.

I tend to agree that working local prosecution is a decent route to getting into a more rural USAO, especially if you want to focus on Indian country. Coming into the office with experience prosecuting violent felonies will give you a leg up on focusing on Indian country cases, though you may have to pay some dues on other kinds of cases first. (Basically, what makes a huge difference here is whether the district is on the border or not.)

I also agree that local prosecution will help give you local connections. My former office hired a lot out of the DA’s office and so when there was an opening, people still in the DA’s office already knew a lot of people in the USAO who could speak up for them.

That office did also hire people out of biglaw, both the local variety and from elsewhere, so that is a possible route. One question is whether you want the USAO to be a serious pay cut or pay raise.

Lifestyle depends a lot on the district’s overall case load and to some extent your own time management skills and such. (I write this from in front of my computer trying to finish something for tomorrow.) I’d say that no, it’s really not like biglaw, in largest part because you’re in charge of your cases and therefore your time. There aren’t any partners telling you to do X or Y by whatever deadline they choose to give; you get all your deadlines and figure out how to manage them and what needs to get done when. Sometimes that means late nights or weekend work, but it feels a little different when you work then because you know you need to get the work to the court (or your supervisor or whoever) rather than because someone else decides you need to.

To be clear, I don’t mean this is all loosey goosey and you can just work whenever; you are expected to work 8:30-5 (unless you have flextime options, which I think a lot of offices do now, and of course this is all a little different under WFH anyway). If you need to be out for some point during the day, you’re expected to take leave rather than just organize your work hours around whatever the appointment is (though again, this is changing somewhat with various flextime policies. I currently get enough leave and have enough time banked that if I have a dentist appointment at 4 I’ll just take sick leave rather than start work an hour earlier, but more offices are getting on board with the latter).

The flip side is you’re not really *expected* to work evenings or weekends. It’s understood that you probably will at times (especially when prepping trial), but it’s not very common to be *contacted* outside those hours/on the weekend and usually you’ll know ahead of time that there’s something going on that might require your attention. (I’ll admit I’m more blasé about checking my phone on the weekends than I probably should be, but I can only think of 3 occasions in the last 5 years when I unexpectedly got an email over the weekend that ideally I’d have looked at before Monday morning. For a real emergency someone would call me and that almost never happens.)

Right now has been a bad stretch of working late for me but I’d say I average around 50-ish hours a week. If I’m prepping trial, that will probably mean working weekends and/or late the 2-4 weeks before trial (depending on its scope). If I’m in trial, I’m working solid from like 5 am to 11pm (and only because if I get less than 5 hrs of sleep I’ll be useless the next say).

And vacation is absolutely respected - people cover for each other all the time. You have to make sure to proactively plan vacations, because otherwise it’s too easy to put them off. That is, if you plan a trip and buy tickets etc, opposing counsel and the court will work around that without issue (unless like you’re gone every other week). If you look at your trial calendar and think, “okay, this trial is definitely going, it’s set for June, I’ll plan to go somewhere in July,” that means that the trial will invariably get continued till August, so you’ll spend July prepping and then you’ll try the case in August and then you’ll try to catch up from being in trial and boom it’s Christmas and you haven’t gone anywhere. There’s always stuff to do so it’s really easy to put off time off. But if you do find yourself with a lull you can also just take time off spur of the moment and no one will care.

I will say, too, that in some offices at some times the work can be a bit what you make of it. That is, when I used to go into the office on weekends, it was always the usual suspects there - they’re usually the good and conscientious people who take on a lot of work and are maybe a little bit workaholic. That’s not always the case of course - you may just get more work and more trials and the trials just eat your life - but temperament matters.

I will say I know a ton of women AUSAs with kids. I don’t have any kids myself, but it seems a much more humane atmosphere to be a parent than biglaw (even before the feds actually came up with paid maternity leave). Obviously as a biglaw partner you have a lot of autonomy, but having clients and billable hours makes a difference. (We do track our hours, but we’re obviously not billing them.)

[Anonymous User]

You probably should do a district court clerkship in the jurisdiction you're considering. Look into the Gaye L. Tenoso Indian Country Fellowship too.

[Anonymous User]

Warning, rambling ahead: I used to work in an district that had a lot of Indian country (and was not a PL-280 state). The work is really tough because it’s a lot of violent crime, DUIs, and child sex abuse, in what are frequently very poor communities with members who don’t always have great relationships with law enforcement. It is in many ways more like state prosecution than a lot of other kinds of cases you get at USAOs.

I tend to agree that working local prosecution is a decent route to getting into a more rural USAO, especially if you want to focus on Indian country. Coming into the office with experience prosecuting violent felonies will give you a leg up on focusing on Indian country cases, though you may have to pay some dues on other kinds of cases first. (Basically, what makes a huge difference here is whether the district is on the border or not.)

I also agree that local prosecution will help give you local connections. My former office hired a lot out of the DA’s office and so when there was an opening, people still in the DA’s office already knew a lot of people in the USAO who could speak up for them.

That office did also hire people out of biglaw, both the local variety and from elsewhere, so that is a possible route. One question is whether you want the USAO to be a serious pay cut or pay raise.

Lifestyle depends a lot on the district’s overall case load and to some extent your own time management skills and such. (I write this from in front of my computer trying to finish something for tomorrow.) I’d say that no, it’s really not like biglaw, in largest part because you’re in charge of your cases and therefore your time. There aren’t any partners telling you to do X or Y by whatever deadline they choose to give; you get all your deadlines and figure out how to manage them and what needs to get done when. Sometimes that means late nights or weekend work, but it feels a little different when you work then because you know you need to get the work to the court (or your supervisor or whoever) rather than because someone else decides you need to.

To be clear, I don’t mean this is all loosey goosey and you can just work whenever; you are expected to work 8:30-5 (unless you have flextime options, which I think a lot of offices do now, and of course this is all a little different under WFH anyway). If you need to be out for some point during the day, you’re expected to take leave rather than just organize your work hours around whatever the appointment is (though again, this is changing somewhat with various flextime policies. I currently get enough leave and have enough time banked that if I have a dentist appointment at 4 I’ll just take sick leave rather than start work an hour earlier, but more offices are getting on board with the latter).

The flip side is you’re not really *expected* to work evenings or weekends. It’s understood that you probably will at times (especially when prepping trial), but it’s not very common to be *contacted* outside those hours/on the weekend and usually you’ll know ahead of time that there’s something going on that might require your attention. (I’ll admit I’m more blasé about checking my phone on the weekends than I probably should be, but I can only think of 3 occasions in the last 5 years when I unexpectedly got an email over the weekend that ideally I’d have looked at before Monday morning. For a real emergency someone would call me and that almost never happens.)

Right now has been a bad stretch of working late for me but I’d say I average around 50-ish hours a week. If I’m prepping trial, that will probably mean working weekends and/or late the 2-4 weeks before trial (depending on its scope). If I’m in trial, I’m working solid from like 5 am to 11pm (and only because if I get less than 5 hrs of sleep I’ll be useless the next say).

And vacation is absolutely respected - people cover for each other all the time. You have to make sure to proactively plan vacations, because otherwise it’s too easy to put them off. That is, if you plan a trip and buy tickets etc, opposing counsel and the court will work around that without issue (unless like you’re gone every other week). If you look at your trial calendar and think, “okay, this trial is definitely going, it’s set for June, I’ll plan to go somewhere in July,” that means that the trial will invariably get continued till August, so you’ll spend July prepping and then you’ll try the case in August and then you’ll try to catch up from being in trial and boom it’s Christmas and you haven’t gone anywhere. There’s always stuff to do so it’s really easy to put off time off. But if you do find yourself with a lull you can also just take time off spur of the moment and no one will care.

I will say, too, that in some offices at some times the work can be a bit what you make of it. That is, when I used to go into the office on weekends, it was always the usual suspects there - they’re usually the good and conscientious people who take on a lot of work and are maybe a little bit workaholic. That’s not always the case of course - you may just get more work and more trials and the trials just eat your life - but temperament matters.

I will say I know a ton of women AUSAs with kids. I don’t have any kids myself, but it seems a much more humane atmosphere to be a parent than biglaw (even before the feds actually came up with paid maternity leave). Obviously as a biglaw partner you have a lot of autonomy, but having clients and billable hours makes a difference. (We do track our hours, but we’re obviously not billing them.)

I am familiar with two USAOs in the non-coastal West, but both are still in more populated/competitive areas than you seem to be describing. I'm sure hiring varies a lot from office to office, but in smaller offices connections can become much more important. From a T6 with above median grades and ties, you would be a good candidate to clerk for a local D. Ct. judge. If you can land a spot with one that was a former AUSA, all the better. The most direct path (barring a rare opening for a first-year attorney at the USAO) would be to clerk, work in the DA's office for a few years and get some trial experience, then pivot to the USAO. Working for a top-tier local shop is also an option, but I think in smaller markets the DA-USAO pipeline is generally stronger. You'll generally be prosecuting gun crimes, drug busts, and sex trafficking. Indian Country is a different story--there you'll get more violent crimes.

I think work-life balance varies quite a bit from office to office and will depend largely on your caseload. As far as how soul-crushing it is, it depends on what you have a stomach for. Sure, you're doing public service, but you're also dealing with incredibly unfortunate people in incredibly difficult situations. I know a couple of prosecutors who have worked Indian Country and have described it as particularly dire.

Thank you both. Lots of good info here, lots for me to think about. Out of curiosity, the district I'm looking at consistently has openings through the Tenoso DOJ fellowship--assuming I clerk in-district, and have an otherwise strong Indian law background, I assume I would be pretty competitive for that, right?

[Anonymous User]

You probably should do a district court clerkship in the jurisdiction you're considering. Look into the Gaye L. Tenoso Indian Country Fellowship too.

LOL did not see this before I posted my last comment. Yeah, very much trying to clerk in-district, then considering Tenoso.

[Anonymous User]

So the person I knew in that position was Native and hadn’t clerked or gone to fancy schools at all, but had worked extensively with tribes. That said, I’m not certain how many candidates will have those qualifications - I know some Native AUSAs but there are just not a lot of Native attorneys out there. I think it would be a great experience but unless you already have demonstrated experience working with tribes or in Indian Country (edit to add: which you say you do) it’s going to be kind of tough to land. The most recent person I could find in the position is in Tulsa, so I also wonder to what extent it might get used as an opportunity to deal with the fallout of McGirt.

Follow up on first edit: if you have strong Indian law experience, yes, that will help a lot. Although the description talks about selecting assignment preferences, I’m not certain that you would be able to pick from all of the participating USAOs, since it talks about placement being mutually agreed upon by the Fellow and the District. But certainly clerking in a district that hosts would be helpful. Though you would have to be walled off from your judge for a period.

[andythefir]

There’s also an important somewhere v anywhere distinction. If you’re willing to work anywhere, good grades from a good school + ADA will certainly eventually work for you. Probably even within the region you want. Even moreso if you’re willing to work on the border. But if you want one office, there’s nothing that can guarantee that works out for you because every single AUSA opening gets every single possible background. Which means if you’re clerk + biglaw, the USA can be in the mood for ADAs until you become too expensive, and vice versa.

Also it’s more complicated than rural west=Indian Crimes. Most offices are divided into sections, and most rural west offices have drugs/guns/white collar sections that account for the bulk of the office. If you have your heart set on Indian Crimes that’s great, but that also limits the spots you’re competitive for. The best strategy to getting into a competitive office is to apply for a branch of that office>move to a different branch after a few years. So El Paso>Houston or Yuma>Phoenix.

Finally, AUSAs are not GS jobs, which means that the offices get a lot of discretion re everything from flextime to pay. There is a pay scale you can Google, but everyone I knew in the USAO made less than the chart said they should. Also, it’s cheap for offices to hire 3ish year attorneys, and it’s expensive to hire 7+, so there is a dynamic where you can turn into a pumpkin.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, you have to work in Indian country to be able to have the chance to work those cases, but you’re not likely to get hired just to work Indian country cases (unless through the Tenoso fellowship). You’d need to apply for generic criminal AUSA in the district and then work your way into Indian crimes, though how long it would take could vary depending on your experience coming into the office and the office needs.

(I don’t think going from branch to main office in a district is the only way to move to a more competitive office - I think experience at a less competitive office can lead out of your district as well. Depends somewhat. El Paso and Houston aren’t branches of the same district, they’re in different districts. Yuma is tiny so you’re more likely to get hired in Phoenix to start with because there are more positions in Phoenix. I agree though with the broader point that getting into a USAO can help you move to another if the first isn’t your chosen location.)

[Anonymous User]

Not an AUSA (yet, at least), but jumping in to note that you can apply to a 36-month Indian country fellowship through DOJ Honors, which may be your most direct route: https://www.justice.gov/legal-careers/a ... fellowship

[anonymous2012]

Clerk at the dct level and also at the circuit level if you can swing it with one of the judges in your state.

However, a local ADA office (or state office) that has a hook with SAUSAs is generally the easiest way into an office.

Also consider being flexible on the type of work you would do in the USAO will also increase your odds. Appellate? Forfeiture? Civil?

[Anonymous User]

Appellate is going to be harder to get, not easier. And the problem with forfeiture and civil is that if the OP really wants to do criminal work, moving from forfeiture/civil to criminal isn't very common.

[Anonymous User]

Honestly, don't really want to do appellate work. I like speaking, and I feel like being a trial prosecutor would get me a better understanding of how to serve rural communities.

[andythefir]

Fed clerk + ADA trial experience + willingness to work in Wyoming or Montana or the Dakotas in whatever division is hiring will eventually work out with enough time. The issue is if you want to be hired in a specific division within a specific office within a specific time. That’s when you can get bit by US Attorneys being arbitrary about who they hire because every single posting gets so many applications.