DOJ exit opportunities
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Anonymous
I'm being deliberately vague on details, but I have reason to believe (from past threads on DCUM) that the component/section I am targeting is not particularly "family friendly" in terms of hours/travel, and could even be worse than Biglaw in terms of time spent at home. |
Anonymous
| Do you have any public service on your resume now? If you go to BigLaw, and your firm implodes in three or four years, DoJ components may view your application with skepticism if you have never done any public service. You may have stellar qualifications, but there will be hundreds of others with great qualifications who also have a demonstrated interest in public service. Getting a political appointee position on a partner's coattails is one thing. But if you are looking for a midlevel career position, DoJ will want to know that you plan to stay longer than a year or two to get the line on your resume. |
Anonymous
The big question isn't how much time is spent at home, it is how much attention you are able to give to home while you are there. Will you be completely teathered to your blackberry without ever being able to predict when you have a free moment until after it is gone? That was my big problem with BigLaw, there was no way to know that you could have taken a minute to pay attention to something else until after that moment had passed, and by then, it is too late. |
Anonymous
| It depends on the section of DOJ. From my foprmer DOJ section, many people exited to Big Law jobs at good firms. They did have to take a haircut (e.g., DOJ for 6 years did not equal being a 6th year associate, more like a 4th year) but this made sense, because people were going to need to get to know them/their work before they were up for partnership. To be honest, many of them did not like BigLaw and wanted their DOJ jobs back (but the section has a policy of not re-hiring once you leave). |
Anonymous
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I agree w/PP. Section of DOJ is critical, as they vary widely in terms of prestige (and type of experience you get). If you are going to Civil Appellate or Fed Programs, you will have no problem getting a big law job in 4-5 years. If you are going to OIL, you will have a hard time. Torts - somewhere in the middle. Criminal DOJ can be tough as well, as there is not really enough white-collar crime to go around at the big firms (this from a good friend/former AUSA who now does some criminal but mostly civil at big law).
That being said - DOJ is great! Take the DOJ job! You won't want to go to big law once you've been there . . . . |
Anonymous
op again. Just wanted to thank you and everyone else for offering such thoughtful responses. I neglected to mention earlier that it's also a pretty big deal to me that I would actually feel like I was contributing something useful to the world in the work I was doing for DOJ. If I can do that and have as much or more family time than Biglaw, then I'm willing to let the money go. |
Anonymous
| Have been at DOJ, tried a biglaw job, and came back to another DOJ section. One thing that you have to consider is that after being at DOJ, having pretty much independent management over your cases and making many of the calls/shots, you may find it hard to adjust to a Biglaw environment where you are taking orders from a partner and don't have much decision authority. At least the sections of DOJ that I was/am in train you that the cases are yours to deal with and managing them is your responsibility, and you need to go with and trust your decisions. It can be hard to adjust back from that. |
Anonymous
| Why do you want to go to a corporate law firm? I mean that in all seriousness. DOJ is about the public interest. Why did you go to law school in the first place? Remember that. (I am a lawyer married to a former biglaw lawyer-- life is MUCH better now that he is out and in a govt agency.) |
Anonymous
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What is your endgame? Do you want to have a healthy life, time for family, interesting work? Then do not pass up DOJ honors. It is no simple thing to get into DOJ, and you may not have another chance. If/when you get married and have kids, two average salaries are perfectly adequate to make it in dc. Your kids will go to publics, ans you will not have the biggest house on the block, but you will be FINE.
Do you want a ton of money? Then go biglaw now. But something about the way you phrase everything here makes me think you are not the average money hungry associate. Follow your heart, not some complicated plan - because you can't really tell the future, and you have a great opportunity in your lap! OH another thing - firms really don't give a shit about you and are not rational about it. You're just a billing cog and there are MANY more where you came from. Supply exceeds demand right now. |
Anonymous
I'm sitting in DOJ right now and I confirm this 100% It's 4:15 and I'm getting ready to leave for the day. My hours are flexible and I'm on the way to go pick up my daughter from daycare. It obviously depends where you go in DOJ - but I've loved working here, I can't imagine being anywhere else. |
Anonymous
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I don't think DOJ Honors will have any meaningful impact (positive or negative) on your ability to make partner down the road. When you're a senior associate, people will evaluate your legal skills, your responsibility, your potential to bring in business, and the weight your rabbi commands; those are the factors that will determine whether you make partner or not.
DOJ may give you trial experience, which could help your climb at BigLaw, but that's just the start of the climb. If you're looking at a highly desirable BigLaw position, I'd take it now. But if you're looking at a mediocre BigLaw position, then go with DOJ and hope to parlay that into a better BigLaw job later. I don't agree with this at all. My husband did DOJ Honors in a relatively prestiguous section, and seven of his collegaues in that section have gone, as partners, to large law firms in the past two years. They all clerked and they had all tried several cases. Meanwhile, my husband's friends who went straight to biglaw out of their #1 law school are scrounging around looking for positions at US Attorneys offices, etc., so they can get experience because they have been told they will not make partner if they just stay and hang out. His friends that went to small law firms are doing well, however, and many have now made partner and make more than their straight to biglaw counterparts. I went to a low top 25 school, did not get great grades, but did well, did not clerk, and have worked in both biglaw and small-ish law for eight years. Never had any issue getting or keeping a great paying job doing interesting work. |
Anonymous
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also, the family friendly thing completely depends on your section. In the section my husband is in, each attorney is responsible for about ten cases at a time, and he tries about 4 cases a year. It is not low stress, and the hours are worse than any law firm I have ever been in. I think to do that kind of work you need to not be focused on your end game, you need to be dedicated to the service, the work, and your section. He and his coworkers joke about the kids that come for DOJ Honors, as he did, but are only looking to "check the box" after their clerkship, say they did it, and get some big great accolades and parlay it into a huge salary. Those people are pretty transparent and do not enjoy how hard the job is, or what is expected from them.
And, previous posters -- all of the people I knwo that work in this section went to one of the top three law schools, clerked, and could have worked at any firm they wanted. The idea that they took this job because they couldn't, and hoped to eventually, get some offer from a top firm is silly. |
Anonymous
I'm the person you're quoting. I respect your different opinion, but I maintain my view. I'm a partner in BigLaw who has actually hired some DOJ attorneys and worked with several others. To my mind, they're just fungible associates. Some have good work ethics and are great to work with; others are prima donna's who expect everyone to kiss their asses and won't do the hard & often unsexy work needed to keep my huge cases on track. I'm not saying DOJ is a bad place to start, but it's no golden ticket. (And quite frankly, if our OP starts thinking it's a golden ticket, then my money will start learning toward her/him being a future prima donna!) If you stay for 7-plus years at a specialized DOJ job, and it happens to be in hot demand when you leave, then I suppose you could parlay that into a partnership spot. But it will be a relatively low-paying partnership spot until you prove yourself, since you'll be coming in as a service partner without any book of business. But if you're thinking about switching over after 2-4 years, it's not going to make much difference (positive or negative). If you're lucky, you'll avoid the drudgery of 1st and 2nd year BigLaw work, and instead have some practical trial experience. But you'll need to prove yourself just like any other mid/senior-level associate. I stand by my final advice -- if the BigLaw job is a top-drawer one (e.g., Skadden, Latham, etc), take the bird in your hand. If it's less tempting, then go with DOJ and hope to get into a better firm later. Of course, all this assumes you really want to be a BigLaw partner. Reading your posts, I'm not sure you really want it. It almost seems like you're seeking it because that's what you're supposed to want. That's not criticism because it's how many people (including me perhaps) ended up in BigLaw. But I just think you ought to consider carefully what you really want for yourself. |
Anonymous
I agree. OP, why do you want to be a Biglaw partner -- for the work, for the money, for the title? Be sure there's a good and genuine reason before you chase it, because it is hard to get and miserable if it doesn't turn out to give you the benefits you hoped. Even as a 5th year associate working my ass off, I could see that the senior associates and partners worked just as hard or even harder than I did, plus had the added stress of client management and firm politics. Unless you genuinely love the work or really need the money, it is not worth it. Of course, it is possible to wind up working just as hard at DOJ, for less than half the salary. But often there are intangibles that may compensate -- as another poster stated, autonomy and control over your own docket. This was very important to me. I hated being doled out assignments at BigLaw. Even when the assignments were great, like writing a brief rather than doing the discovery, I never had any control over the case or over my schedule. It's completely different at the government, where I control pretty much everything. I could never go back. It makes it worth the 70% pay cut, at least for me. I also find the people I am working with much more pleasant, and for the most part, no less intelligent or driven. |
Anonymous
| OP, are you targeting Fraud? It's great experience, but the travel is honestly harder than most BigLaw jobs would be. I can't imagine starting there straight out of school with two kids under five. |