defense/military/government weapons contract law? Forum

[sangr]

yeah i totally butchered whatever the actual name of that law is...but for govt/military contracting and such...how does a law student approach trying to work in that field? would it be working at the DoD? is there another way to do this by working at a firm?

[Void]

yeah i totally butchered whatever the actual name of that law is...but for govt/military contracting and such...how does a law student approach trying to work in that field? would it be working at the DoD? is there another way to do this by working at a firm?

I don't think this is really a field. You would either be in house counsel for a weapons company, work for a firm that represents the weapons company, or on the other side you'd probably work for the attorney general. I doubt there is so much litigation over this that anyone works exclusively in this field, and transactionally it would just be basic contract law so again I doubt there is any specialization involved. Are you a 0L?

[TooOld4This]

Yes, this is a field. It is not very creatively called government contracts. It is broader than just defense work, but at some firms you can specialize in DoD and other defense related agencies. And even if the group isn't large enough to have DoD specialists, you are likely to do some form of DoD work in most government contracts groups (though it may not be weapons specific -- DoD has contracts for everything from food services to IT services).

As you might imagine, the field is pretty DC centric. It is also very regulation based (you better be ok with learning archane parts of the Code of Federal Regulations). While some of the work is counseling, a lot is administrative action (brief writing). You can also get involved in a lot of FCPA and FCA work as well.

Currently, exit options from firms to in house are pretty good. I wouldn't start in house, though. There can be a thin line between real JD positions and contract administrator ones. Fresh out of law school, you are more likely to end up in a no-growth position if you start in house.

Another field that is very involved in the defense industry is international trade controls. With so much manufacturing done on a global scale, there is a specialty in the US trade control rules (both Commerce and State). Again, this is a very reg based area and highly technical.

[TheFutureLawyer]

yeah i totally butchered whatever the actual name of that law is...but for govt/military contracting and such...how does a law student approach trying to work in that field? would it be working at the DoD? is there another way to do this by working at a firm?

I don't think this is really a field. You would either be in house counsel for a weapons company, work for a firm that represents the weapons company, or on the other side you'd probably work for the attorney general. I doubt there is so much litigation over this that anyone works exclusively in this field, and transactionally it would just be basic contract law so again I doubt there is any specialization involved. Are you a 0L?

I'm not super into it, but certainly public procurement is a field unto itself (I guess a sub-topic of the discipline of contract law). There are people who specialize in that, no doubt.

If, as the thread title suggests, you interested solely in the government's procurement of weapons, I can't think of anywhere other than an in-house firm (if that) or DOD where'd you do that and only that.

If you're just generally interested in government procurement, and also interested in generally dealing with the military, that would open the doors a bit. The military contracts for a lot more than weapons - think of all the mundane shit a large organization needs. I've seen interaction of procurement law with labor law in dealing with civilian employees of the military - so that may be another topic you would want to look into.

Anyway, if that's the field you want to go into - don't expect you're first summer job to only be about the government's procurement of weapons. If you could just get work dealing mainly with public procurement that would be a great first step. I'm sure you'd have to be a few years into your career before you could make a serious push to get a job dealing only/mainly with the procurement of weapons. And if you find that you don't enjoy the day-to-day work of procurement law during your early experiences, then you probably won't enjoy the sub-field of dealing with weapons. Whether its air-conditioners or F-18s, the law you'd be dealing with is really the same.