How to find a 9-5 government job post-clerkship (and when to look)? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm about to start my second year of a two-year district court clerkship and am looking for advice on next steps in my career. Before clerking, I did a stint in BigLaw (which wasn't great) and, since clerking, I've really come to value the free time that I have outside of work. Also, having my salary radically reduced after leaving BigLaw has shown me that I don't need a BigLaw salary to survive. I think a salary of around 100K (with room for periodic increases) would put me in a good spot (if it matters, I have six years of post-grad legal experience). Accordingly, I think that a government role post-clerkship would be ideal for me.

I know that not all government roles meet my WLB/salary criteria, so I'm interested in finding out which ones do. I'm not really tied to any particular subject matter. Rather, I'm mostly focused on achieving a good WLB with a reasonable salary. I don't mind being busy from time-to-time, but I want to be able to clock out at 5 or 6 p.m. on the vast majority of days with little to no weekend work.

Also, I'm interested in advice on when to reach out/apply to government roles post-clerkship. I realize this can depend upon when openings are posted, but I would appreciate some general guidance on this issue.

[crazywafflez]

Many federal govt roles will fit this. Whether its DOL line attorney, or USDA, they'll meet that. Similarly, your state agencies will as well. You might also look into a state AG's office or the city attorneys (or county). All might be good spots. We don't really know what interests you, but those will all start (state-side) around 70-80k or so and max out around 120-160k after 10 years or so. Fed side will be similar be slightly higher pay.

[Wild Card]

I was in a very similar position to you, and I sent hail mary applications to all bigfed agencies, with a very positive response from the agency I interned for when I was in law school.

I think being able to articulate why public service, why this particular agency, and, of course, why this particular division / office really helps.

I know that sounds silly, but the federal government definitely is interested in hiring former law clerks.

[Anonymous User]

I think being able to articulate why public service, why this particular agency, and, of course, why this particular division / office really helps.

I think this is absolutely correct - these are the main things that a federal employer is going to want to see (I assume a state gov employer too, just don’t have experience with that).

I think most agency jobs will have dedent WLB - from partnering with them and when I get responses etc it seems a very 9-5 gig/no weekends, though as always, this varies by agency (for instance I get a lot of stuff back from State after hours, though not sure how much is workload vs. time zone differences). My sense is that trial attorneys will have heavier loads that attorney-advisors just because of the deadlines in litigation, though I don’t want to say that all attorney-advisor gigs are chill, it will definitely depend on the agency and what you do.

WRT USAOs, criminal AUSAs can have heavy workloads, though how heavy and how constant varies by office (SDNY people are always on email well into the evening) and also just what’s happening in your cases (i.e. if you’re going to trial, it’s long hours everywhere, but how often you go to trial varies; average where I’ve worked is 1-2 trials/year but it’s luck of the draw. I knew someone who had trials go 4 trial settings in a row - so two months of back to back trials - which would of course require a lot of work leading up to that period). Civil AUSA is generally more chill.

The civil/criminal distinction probably breaks down if you’re at Main Justice, though I’m not sure if you can generalize about the hours there (I feel like it’s more intense than the average civil AUSA gig but not as intense as the most intense criminal AUSA gigs, but that’s really just a hunch and different components will vary a lot). I don’t think it’s going to be biglaw levels of work though unless you’re, like, heading a major division or something.

As for when to apply - generally, it is going to depend on when a job is posted (some USAOs take rolling applications, but that doesn’t dictate when they actually fill an opening). I’d suggest keeping an eye out starting now, but you can probably start making plausible applications in late spring - around April/May. If the position requires the national security clearance background check (USAOs, at least some other main justice components or agencies), it can take 3-4 months to get clearance to be able to start work. The application timeline itself can vary a lot too - I’ve seen some searches conclude within a month to 6 weeks, others take more than that just to hear back about an initial interview.

The problem with applying earlier than that, assuming the posting doesn’t say anything about a later start date, is that most agencies only hire when they have a demonstrated need (and get funding for that demonstrated need), so will struggle to wait months and months for you to start, especially if they have another good candidate who can start sooner. They may need someone to start within a given window to keep the funding for the position.

That said, it’s worth looking at openings b/c some don’t come around very often and I don’t think there’s any harm in throwing your hat into the ring even if you’re not sure the timing will work out. So maybe don’t apply to something posted tomorrow, but if something interesting comes up in Dec/Jan, it might be worth a shot. I’ve seen people apply, not get hired b/c of timing issues, then get hired when a subsequent position opens. You might also be able to reach out and find out if they’d consider you if your start date couldn’t be till August/Sept 2025 - no guarantee you’ll get a straight answer about this, but you might.

(Just a last note, you may know this, but in case not, experience requirements for federal jobs are hard and fast, so there’s no point applying for something that requires X yrs of experience if you don’t have X years; the hiring committee won’t even see your application. A lot of positions look for 3 years, which I assume you will meet given your biglaw stint, so you should be okay, but not knowing your timeline, I thought I’d mention it, because in the private sector most job “requirements” can be ignored if the employer likes a candidate enough, which isn’t the case for federal hiring.)

[Anonymous User]

Good advice here already. I can only speak to fed jobs. If you want WLB, avoid anything criminal. Civil litigators generally have good hours. I only work evenings or weekends when we're up against a court deadline, which is rare since I never have more than 1 case in active litigation. My spouse, who is a trial attorney at at another agency, likewise very rarely works evenings or weekends. Pay goes up to ~$193k in the DC area for positions on the GS scale that don't require managerial responsibility. (This differs across agencies; attorney jobs at some, e.g., EEOC and DOL, go to GS-14, others, e.g., DOJ, FTC, go to GS-15. There are also agencies on the treasury scale or some version thereof, where the cap is higher, e.g., CFPB.)

If you have decent litigation experience prior to your clerkship, then combined with the clerkship, you should be a decent candidate for positions at various agencies - you never know what a search committee is exactly looking for, some will want applicants with prior experience in the exact area of law, others don't, and this can differ not just between agencies, but also between hiring cycles.

I'd probably start applying at the beginning of next calendar year; hiring is either slow, or very slow, and at least at my agency, it is generally not problem to push your starting date because you need to wrap up your clerkship. Note that various agencies are currently in a hiring freeze due to budgetary issues; things will hopefully look up in the next fiscal year (which starts on Oct. 1; even if there is more money and hiring can start back up, it'll take a while for job ads to go out).

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Thank you all for your responses! They were all very helpful/informative.