What to do after clerkship? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I have found myself in an interesting situation. I went to a T10, thought I was going to do litigation, got good grades, but then ultimately decided to go the transactional route at a V10 firm. After working there for a bit, I received an unusual opportunity to do a specialty clerkship related to my field and took it. I wasn't sure if it was the right move, but after working in the government for a bit, I have realized how little I cared about transactional work in the first place and how lucky I am to have received an opportunity for a course correction. The pay cut was admittedly steep, but I also love my new job and lifestyle.

My question is: what should I do after this clerkship? I have ruled out returning to my prior job (or a similar one), but nothing else. Part of me would like to stay in government forever, although I would also like to keep the door open to returning to a firm (or anything else that makes money lol). I'm not sure how conducive fed experience is to that, or whether it matters if it's a litigating position or attorney-advisor position. Part of me regrets going the transactional route at all and wants to try to climb the clerkship ladder even if unconnected to my specialty and just start clean. Yet another part of me liked the money I was making in biglaw and is tempted to give it another try, just in a litigating position. (Litigation positions in my field exist in law firms, but are a bit more niche than transactional practice.). I have even given some slight thought to teaching (lol), but feel like government pay is as low as I can go and don't want to take any low-paying VAPs, etc.

Unfortunately, I am now having to do some self-discovery that I didn't do in law school because I followed the crowd and took the (seemingly) path of least resistance and generally had trouble envisioning what actual legal practice would be like. I felt like I really did have a great resume and bright future at one point (and objectively probably still do), but am now worried that I wasted some years on a trash job at a burn-and-churn firm. I'm also a bit behind the eight ball in understanding the litigation job market because I spent my time cutting my teeth in a transactional practice. Fortunately, though, I don't have any loans to speak of and can afford to contemplate all of these hypotheticals now.

[lavarman84]

We have a very broad question and not much information. If you love your new job and the lifestyle, I'd recommend sticking with government and the work you're doing. Even if you find a lit job at a big firm, odds are it's not going to be worlds better than your previous biglaw job. In this profession, jobs that are interesting/fulfilling, pay a lot, and offer a reasonable work-life balance are few and far between.

[Anonymous User]

AUSA here. You are well situated to jump onto a pretty good, lucrative, and personally fulfilling government career. With the clerkship and biglaw experience, you'd have a good shot at DOJ, if not Main Justice in Washington then a USAO in your geographic location of choice.

Once you are in the federal system, it's incredible how many career branches exist within DOJ alone. There's something for everyone. I think it's the world's largest law firm? But you can branch out even beyond the DOJ, because federal agencies love to poach lawyers from DOJ and do so all the time. These are all pretty cool jobs. The benefits are great. Some non-DOJ agencies are flirting with 100% telecommuting positions (maybe not for young lawyers but think long term) (USAOs vary but many are on a 2 days telecommute per week schedule).

A comment about salary and the cash part of all this. You can make more immediate cash in biglaw, it's true. However, the pyramid structure of the biglaw economy for lawyers dictates that you are unlikely to enjoy a biglaw job for more than 3-4 years. I think it's fair to say that a lawyer who has done 10 years of service to the DOJ, and is now looking to branch out elsewhere within the federal system, has significant advantages over the biglaw lawyer who did 4 years in biglaw and 6 at DOJ. The 10 year DOJ lawyer probably has a higher salary, and probably earns vacation time at the premium federal rate. (There is no "earning vacation time" in biglaw btw. This is a foreign concept to private law firms.) In 2022 dollars, senior lawyers who spent their entire legal careers in federal service are earning salaries in the range of $200,000 or more, in low-cost cities (much higher in NYC etc). So, I'm not so sure there is a financial downside to investing into a government career sooner rather than later. I don't think the biglaw profits from those few years are enough to change the equation.

That's my honest take, as an obviously biased government lawyer. I do love my job. It's not easy finding lawyers out there who can say that.

[Anonymous User]

AUSA here. You are well situated to jump onto a pretty good, lucrative, and personally fulfilling government career. With the clerkship and biglaw experience, you'd have a good shot at DOJ, if not Main Justice in Washington then a USAO in your geographic location of choice.

Once you are in the federal system, it's incredible how many career branches exist within DOJ alone. There's something for everyone. I think it's the world's largest law firm? But you can branch out even beyond the DOJ, because federal agencies love to poach lawyers from DOJ and do so all the time. These are all pretty cool jobs. The benefits are great. Some non-DOJ agencies are flirting with 100% telecommuting positions (maybe not for young lawyers but think long term) (USAOs vary but many are on a 2 days telecommute per week schedule).

A comment about salary and the cash part of all this. You can make more immediate cash in biglaw, it's true. However, the pyramid structure of the biglaw economy for lawyers dictates that you are unlikely to enjoy a biglaw job for more than 3-4 years. I think it's fair to say that a lawyer who has done 10 years of service to the DOJ, and is now looking to branch out elsewhere within the federal system, has significant advantages over the biglaw lawyer who did 4 years in biglaw and 6 at DOJ. The 10 year DOJ lawyer probably has a higher salary, and probably earns vacation time at the premium federal rate. (There is no "earning vacation time" in biglaw btw. This is a foreign concept to private law firms.) In 2022 dollars, senior lawyers who spent their entire legal careers in federal service are earning salaries in the range of $200,000 or more, in low-cost cities (much higher in NYC etc). So, I'm not so sure there is a financial downside to investing into a government career sooner rather than later. I don't think the biglaw profits from those few years are enough to change the equation.

That's my honest take, as an obviously biased government lawyer. I do love my job. It's not easy finding lawyers out there who can say that.

Do you think those non-DOJ agencies will require people to be located close to D.C. (i.e., could I live in CA and work for the Department of Interior)?

[Anonymous User]

Different government lawyer here - the fully remote positions that are starting to pop up are pretty much completely remote, from wherever you like, not just near DC. (I think the federal government doesn’t have any of the tax issues that firms have about having employees located in states where they don’t have an office - the federal government is already established in the entire country). That said, I think they’re still much less common, but they do exist, and it will be interesting to see whether they become more common.

[Anonymous User]

AUSA here again from "Sun Dec 04, 2022 1:35 pm." Agree with the above government lawyer. If you dig into the inner workings of any particular federal agency, you'll see that many of them are not even de facto headquartered in Washington in the first place. It seems like the legal nerve center for one agency I work with often, for example, is in New Mexico. New Mexico is where most of those lawyers are officed. I got another agency whose lawyers are officed in Chicago.