AUSA to Main DOJ? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone here have experience moving from a USAO to Main Justice as a trial attorney?

I’ve been an AUSA for several years and absolutely love the work of investigation, thrill of trial and the overall mission. My office was once a terrific place, but has become a smoldering remnant of itself. My colleagues are quitting in droves, the front office unites the line only by garnering near universal disdain, and there is an overwhelming feeling of misery seeping throughout the whole office.

I am considering a move to Main, but I am concerned about losing control over “my” cases if I’m essentially second chairing everything to AUSAs in the field. Is that concern overblown or should I think long and hard about jumping to the mother ship if I don’t want to lose out on what makes this job amazing?

[Anonymous User]

I’ll let others chime in about your concern about losing control over your cases if/when you move to Main, but why not attempt to jump to another USAO?

[Anonymous User]

I haven’t made the jump to Main Justice, but I think that concern is kind of overblown. I think there’s a lot of work in MJ that isn’t about supporting USAOs, and when I’ve seen MJ trial attorneys work with our office, it’s because they have specialized expertise that we don’t and so they’re a full partner in any trial.

That said, my office also has a pretty strong tradition of co-counsel contributing equally, so I can’t say how it plays out everywhere. Plus personally, I really like second-chairing.

The thing I would worry more about in MJ is less autonomy on MJ-related matters. There’s seems to be much more hierarchy and just getting a simple pros memo approved requires levels of approval. That may just reflect the greater complexity of cases, of course, but I get the sense it’s quite different culturally.

I also think a lot of MJ does more policy-related stuff, which you may or may not like (the difference between running a TIII in your own case, and setting policies when/how TIIIs should be used).

As an aside, it is kind of amazing how quickly an office can change with different management. I don’t think it’s quite as dramatic as some of the housecleaning you see in DA’s offices, but it can be a bummer.

[Anonymous User]

Does anyone here have experience moving from a USAO to Main Justice as a trial attorney?

I’ve been an AUSA for several years and absolutely love the work of investigation, thrill of trial and the overall mission. My office was once a terrific place, but has become a smoldering remnant of itself. My colleagues are quitting in droves, the front office unites the line only by garnering near universal disdain, and there is an overwhelming feeling of misery seeping throughout the whole office.

I am considering a move to Main, but I am concerned about losing control over “my” cases if I’m essentially second chairing everything to AUSAs in the field. Is that concern overblown or should I think long and hard about jumping to the mother ship if I don’t want to lose out on what makes this job amazing?

As a MJ attorney, I think this concern is largely overblown, with the caveat that it probably depends on what section or branch you specifically would be joining. Where I am, we have certain statutes that require USAOs to bring those types of cases to us first. This means that for the most part as far as those statutes are concerned, we’re working with USAO partners but we have slightly more input on strategy decisions, etc. We also have some districts where we file and reserve grand jury time completely on our own and other districts that have much more input and control over how we manage our cases in their district. IMO, this is completely understandable because they don’t want us creating bad law for them due to lack of familiarity with local practice. In most of my cases, I would consider the AUSAs our equal partner.

As for cons, another poster hit the nail on the head with the necessary approvals. Our partner AUSAs often get frustrated with how long and how in depth some of our approval processes can be. Our case load is lighter because the investigations can be huge, so you’re not doing these as often as you would be otherwise. The bigger question you should ask yourself is how much you enjoy being in court. Since you only carry a few cases at MJ, it’s so much less than any (criminal) AUSA I know. Grand jury appearances are regular in criminal practice areas, but actual court appearances can be few and far between (again depending on your section or branch).

As for pros, I love the type of work I do and I would be unable to do a lot of it at a USAO (or there wouldn’t be enough of these types of cases to fill my docket). The specialization is a benefit for some people but a negative for others, so take that with a grain of salt. I also find that there are some really exciting/cutting edge cases that I get to work on (for example, charging a first of its kind case). I also enjoy having time to fully investigate a few cases at a time and the autonomy I have as a less experienced attorney (which I’m sure is also a benefit of a USAO).

Happy to answer any other questions.