Awards as Federal Government attorney

[Anonymous]

How common are they (I am referring to non-monetary awards, with a certificate/plaque and a little recognition ceremony). I have gotten 4 over my career. I was feeling pretty good about that, but a friend from law school at a different agency said it was not a big deal because everyone gets those.

[Anonymous]

Atta boy !

(Now you have 5.)

[Anonymous]

They are meaningless unless they come with cash or PTO. I received a few of those, those were nice.

[Anonymous]

They are meaningless unless they come with cash or PTO. I received a few of those, those were nice.

Does Main Justice give monetary awards? I've gotten PTO awards, as have friends of mine, but I don't know anyone who has received cash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How common are they (I am referring to non-monetary awards, with a certificate/plaque and a little recognition ceremony). I have gotten 4 over my career. I was feeling pretty good about that, but a friend from law school at a different agency said it was not a big deal because everyone gets those.

If you feel good about them, then they have done their job. If you are halfway decent at your job and people like you, you'll get them every once in awhile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They are meaningless unless they come with cash or PTO. I received a few of those, those were nice.

Does Main Justice give monetary awards? I've gotten PTO awards, as have friends of mine, but I don't know anyone who has received cash.

No idea, I don’t work there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They are meaningless unless they come with cash or PTO. I received a few of those, those were nice.

Does Main Justice give monetary awards? I've gotten PTO awards, as have friends of mine, but I don't know anyone who has received cash.

DP but yes. Cash awards are standard. Maxed out at $5k for non-SES at my agency but most receive something.

To the OP's question, yes, everyone gets them. And they're random and more luck that you happened to be assigned to something that political leadership wants to highlight than meaning you actually did quality work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They are meaningless unless they come with cash or PTO. I received a few of those, those were nice.

Does Main Justice give monetary awards? I've gotten PTO awards, as have friends of mine, but I don't know anyone who has received cash.

DP but yes. Cash awards are standard. Maxed out at $5k for non-SES at my agency but most receive something.

To the OP's question, yes, everyone gets them. And they're random and more luck that you happened to be assigned to something that political leadership wants to highlight than meaning you actually did quality work.

Seconded. In my component of Main Justice, cash awards were discretionary and ended up being ~$2-3k at the end of the year, and it only happens for a particular attorney every few years as I think they try to spread the awards around.

[Anonymous]

At my agency the only people that usually get these awards are the office heads. For example, a rulemaking chief might get an award for a rule going out or an enforcement head might get an award for a judgment in a certain case. It's an unfortunate approach since the award that leadership gets is most likely based upon the work of the staff attorneys under them.

Even more unfortunate is that they seem to have gone a bit in the other direction with the latest award where they gave it to anyone that even tangentially worked on this one issue so over 100 people got this award which kinda renders it meaningless.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the agency: some do plaques all the time and some don't. But, it requires a fair amount of supervisor time to write up an award justification and shepherd it through, so you should feel good that your supervisor likes you enough to do it. And if the awards were competitive at all, feel good about winning those too.

[Anonymous]

I’m an attorney/supervisor at a non-DOJ department.

We give out paper certificates like crazy as a morale booster. I give no positive weight to a collection of certificates. For many, there’s an all-OGC presentation at which the certificates are announced.

The plaques are less common and typically are provided by DOJ or our OIG. If I see a good number of plaques on your wall, my presumption is that you are effective, competent, and a good coworker

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my agency the only people that usually get these awards are the office heads. For example, a rulemaking chief might get an award for a rule going out or an enforcement head might get an award for a judgment in a certain case. It's an unfortunate approach since the award that leadership gets is most likely based upon the work of the staff attorneys under them.

Even more unfortunate is that they seem to have gone a bit in the other direction with the latest award where they gave it to anyone that even tangentially worked on this one issue so over 100 people got this award which kinda renders it meaningless.

Ooh, that would be a major faux pas at my agency. Supervisors do not receive awards or, if they get one somehow, are expected to acknowledge and reward the staff work that went into it. But you are low-key judged by the recognition your staff get.