Main Justice or local United States Attorney Office? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Hi all. I’m very curious about these above career paths and would like to know the pros and cons of each from attorneys who work there.

[Anonymous User]

Hi all. I’m very curious about these above career paths and would like to know the pros and cons of each from attorneys who work there.

I can provide some clarity but it will depend on what USAOs and Main Justice Components you are targeting.

[Anonymous User]

Hi all. I’m very curious about these above career paths and would like to know the pros and cons of each from attorneys who work there.

I can provide some clarity but it will depend on what USAOs and Main Justice Components you are targeting.

Yeah, ditto, but it depends a LOT.

Assuming you're comparing a USAO to the Criminal Division in Main Justice, to my understanding (I don't work there but this is what I've gleaned), various positions in Crim will 1) do more multi-district, major complex cases, 2) involve quite a bit more specialization, 3) entail travel to support local USAOs, and/or 4) involve work setting policies for all the DOJ agencies more than litigation on the ground.

re 2 & 3) as a litigator in Crim you're going to be placed in a specialized unit like fraud, computer crime, child exploitation etc, and will work narrowly but deeply. In that capacity, you may well go around the country helping the local USAO prosecute, say, sex trafficking of a minor or a particularly technologically complex computer fraud case if the local office doesn't have a lot of experience in doing so, or the case is particularly difficult or sensitive, or pushing the boundaries of past law/policies.

That said, depending on the size of the USAO/your personal inclinations, prosecutors at USAOs can and do specialize as well. But I think there's a sense that Main Justice does so more.

re 4), the Crim Division works on a lot of issues that reach across USAOs, for instance, overseeing issuance of wiretaps - so if you were in the Crim Division and did that work, you'd review wiretap applications and put them through the approval process, but you wouldn't work the cases using the wiretap.

Pros and cons will depend very much on your personal preferences: being in DC vs. being somewhere else, wanting to work cases on the ground vs. working on broader policies, whether you want either of those positions to be stepping stones to something else. A big con of USAOs is that they're paid on a lower payscale than Main Justice, so you'll make more in DC (although what you make in a local USAO can go further depending on local COL).

Keep in mind that USAOs can vary a LOT by location. The USAOs in Oklahoma right now are super busy handling all the Indian Country state cases that got overturned by a relatively recent SCOTUS ruling, and that's going to be a ton of DUIs and violent crime. The border districts deal with significant volume of the same kinds of border crimes over and over again. SDNY and NDCA are going to see more sophisticated financial/tech stuff based on where they are. Don't get me wrong, all districts will get all of some kinds of crime, but the frequency will vary.

[Anonymous User]

Hi all. I’m very curious about these above career paths and would like to know the pros and cons of each from attorneys who work there.

I can provide some clarity but it will depend on what USAOs and Main Justice Components you are targeting.

I’m more interested in Civil Division, but not set on a specific component (been applying broadly to all). As for AUSAs, I’m looking at mostly those in the Midwest.

[Anonymous User]

Hi all. I’m very curious about these above career paths and would like to know the pros and cons of each from attorneys who work there.

I can provide some clarity but it will depend on what USAOs and Main Justice Components you are targeting.

Doj Fraud and a USAO in a coastal not very high profile state eg Delaware, Oregon?