DOJ exit opportunities
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Anonymous
op here. why am I putting prestigious things on my resume? I think three decades of that is enough, and I'm ready to decide what to do with my life and close some of those doors that professors and grandparents are always telling you to keep open. I respect that apparently some senior biglaw folks do not hold DOJ experience in the highest regard, but that seems component-specific and I would probably self-select (now and in the future) away from any place that, for whatever reason, had a lot of people that viewed DOJ trial section experience as a negative. OP, if you want to do DOJ, you should do DOJ. Just do not do DOJ because you think it will offer you the ability to eventually cash out. It may or may not, and I can tell you that as a general rule, the people who leave government and "cash out" tend to be superstars, not junior DOJ folks. A few other points: -- Think seriously about the impact that much travel will have on your family. I am BigLaw midlevel litigator, and do almost no travel. The very few times I have traveled, for me, have been much worse than the average long hours required by BigLaw. For the average high workload, I can almost always make it home by a reasonable hour, see my kids, and then log back on to work more from home. This schedule is very very typical of BigLaw parents. On those nights where I cannot make it home before bedtime, it generally means I am working to some deadline, and with that out of the way have some leeway the very next morning, and can often take the next morning off and spend it with my children. But routine travel is different - you are simply not there a lot of the time. I would think carefully about whether you are ok with that - I love my job, but those few days where I miss bedtime are definitely the worst. I cannot imagine that being routine. -- I don't think you are quite understanding why a BigLaw firm would not jump at the chance to hire a DOJ attorney. It is not so much that BigLaw does respect the DOJ experience, it is just that DOJ experience, no matter how great it was, may have limited applicability to what a large law firm actually does. For instance being lead counsel on a bunch of trials is awesome, but at a large law firm, that is generally not what associates are needed to do. Large law firms already have plenty of senior people with lots of trial experience, some of whom may have spent 20 years in government, or been judges themselves. Playing defense can be very different than playing offense like the government generally does, particularly if your client is in fact guilty of some wrongdoing. And the goals and concerns of private parties may be very different than the goals and concerns of the government - learning to anticipate and address those concerns is not something DOJ is going to teach you. And most fundamentally, a key part of private practice is developing relationships with clients- in government you will not be doing that. So while DOJ may provide great experience, BigLaw firms are going to be thinking of what they need associates to do, and that great experience may simply not be applicable. My firm is looking for a lateral right now, but we are recruiting from other firms, not the government. It is not because we don't respect government attys, but we are aware that government attys in our field do different work. op here -- everything you said sounds perfectly sensible and correct. For me, the key distinction between us is where you say "I love my job." I am quite confident I would not love being a biglaw associate. I'm not sure I would hate it, but at best it would be a not-unbearable thing to do while paying down loans and providing for my family. I think I would actually love the work I would be doing at DOJ, but as you point out the sacrifices I would be asking my family to make in service of my professional passions are significant and perhaps too much. |
Anonymous
| OP, do DOJ. Not because of anything that anyone here is saying, and not because of the path to which it may lead. Do it because you want to. You clearly do. It seemed like it at first, but now it is very apparent. Both options have positives, negatives, and unknowns, but you should go with your gut, and your gut is clearly telling you that you want to do DOJ. It isn't a lifetime decision, but it seems like one you will regret if you don't try it now. |
Anonymous
OP, it's pretty clear you've already decided what you're going to do. Are you here looking for validation from others? If so, I guess you've gotten some people to agree with you. There are obviously several people who would choose BigLaw over DOJ though. I'm not sure you're going to get anywhere trying to convince them they're wrong in their opinions, and I'm not understanding why you'd want to. You can no longer credibly describe yourself as an "undecided voter," so why are you prolonging the discussion? (BTW, I'm not trying to berate you or to argue; I'm just trying to understand what you're trying to accomplish by debating those that don't agree with your plan to choose DOJ.) |
Anonymous
Quite right that it's clear to me that if my own professional interests were the only factor, I would go straight to DOJ and never look back. And you're also right that my original question was far too narrow and did not really get to the key pivot point in my decision process. My spouse has expressed a preference for the biglaw route, and I came to this more family-oriented board to see if a wave of family-oriented people would tell me that I was being a selfish jerk who was asking too much and not appreciating some unbearable strain I would be placing on the people I love by going to a litigating section at DOJ. So I remain undecided. I was curious to see the thinking behind the folks who would choose biglaw -- is it for family reasons, which would give me pause, or is it for professional reasons about long term goals and what work they enjoy, which I simply do not share? Obviously it's ultimately a personal/family decision, and how my spouse and I are willing to compromise on our preferences is going to be the dispositive factor--not an anonymous internet poll. But the informed opinions people have shared in this thread have been enormously helpful and informative for moving my conversations with my spouse forward, and I sincerely thank everyone for their time and input. |
Anonymous
| What about your family? What does your spouse think? What will he/she be doing? |
Anonymous
I understand, it didn't sound sarcastice - here you go: I worked in government, not at DOJ, but an agency and dealt with DOJ lawyers, then a big law firm, then another big law firm, then a smaller specialized practice. I am not currently at a big law firm. So I can't technically speak to what it is like at DOJ. But having practiced for a relatively long time, and my own experience, the depth of practice I experienced at a big law firm was really excellent for me. Upon reflection, I think I would have preferred going directly to a big firm, but didn't have the credentials at the time to get into one, it was the agency practice that got me into the big firm. I don't have any big firm horror stories (or at least one's that were unique to a big firm - sometimes things are a pain in government and in smaller practices as well). My own world view, such as it is, would be do a clerkship, go to a big firm, then go to government or a smaller firm. |
Anonymous
| It has been very hard for a number of years to get a lateral position at DOJ because of hiring freezes. This may be your only opportunity. Last year the civil division had only two honors slots. |
Anonymous
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OP, as a mother of 3 young ones in biglaw, I think you really need to think about the travel. I used to travel a lot, for pretty long periods of time, and it was FAR worse than me working some late nights. I have found that I spend far more time with my kids, even with biglaw hours, than I did when I was travelling a lot. And the travel was very hard for my husband, who also works a professional job. There is a serious price to be paid for travelling that much, but at least with biglaw, you can usually pretty easily afford help (cleaning service, babysitters, etc.). Will you be able to hire help for all the times you are travelling?
FWIW -- none of my colleagues have ever had a problem getting a position with DOJ once they had some experience (a bunch left around 4-5 years). I personally would bank your $$$$ while you can at biglaw and then take the jump into DOJ later. |
Anonymous
Thanks for the explanation, PP. That helps me understand where you're coming from. Good luck with your decision. Before I move on, I do want to take issue with one point I've seen you make a couple times on this thread. At least twice, I've seen reference in your posts to knowing for certain that you will not be professionally satisfied by the work you'd find at BigLaw. One example is underlined above. I of course cannot claim to know what you would find personally satisfying, but I do think you're being closed-minded about what really happens at BigLaw, and (forgive me) you might be just a bit uneducated about it too. In point of fact, the real work at BigLaw is actually extremely challenging and exciting. Most clients will not go to BigLaw for small-ball matters, and certainly won't pay the fees, so BigLaw matters are almost always extremely complex and intellectually challenging, because those are the matters clients cannot get handled somewhere else for cheaper. I'm definitely not saying there isn't drudge work, because those big complex matters will always involve a fair amount of close-in detail that can get boring. For example, any billion-dollar case is going to have mountains of documents to assess, and despite the advances in review technology, many of those documents are going to have to be reviewed by lawyers at some point in the process. As an associate at BigLaw, that's part of what you'll do. Of course, if you get put on that kind of case at DOJ, you may find yourself doing even more of it, since the resources might not be as available to you to make the job easier (ie, more people, more technology). I've been at BigLaw for quite a while now, and I can honestly say I've never (even as a junior associate) worked on a case that wasn't intellectually challenging. Maybe you've got some personal worldview that prevents you from ever representing corporations in any context -- if that's the case, then I suppose BigLaw is not for you. But don't make the mistake of thinking BigLaw is just mindless drudge work, while DOJ is the place where real lawyers earn their stripes on the toughest cases. That's just simply not the case. If DOJ has some super high-profile case, you can bet all the money in your wallet that there's a BigLaw lawyer on the other side of the V. And at least in my area, litigating against the government is generally perceived as easier than litigating against other private BigLaw firms. That's not a knock on the DOJ lawyers we sometimes face, because most of them are very good advocates, but it's rather a recognition that they often don't have the experience with mega-cases, or the deep support team, that opposing BigLaw litigators will have. Good luck with your decision. It sounds like you have two good options; neither will be a "wrong" choice. Just pick one and move forward. If you later decide you want to switch horses, you can make it happen. |
Anonymous
I agree. It sounds like this weighs heavily on your decision-making process. What is your SO's concerns, and how flexible are you willing to be? Perhaps the work-life balance issue and strain on the SO and children topics are really where many of us can be of help. |
Anonymous
| OP, are you a man or a woman? |
Anonymous
| I would think of how the family would work while you are working - what is your childcare situation? How much income does your spouse bring in? Who will be there for school events, sick kids, etc.? What happens to the family when you are traveling? I'm a former DOJ attorney who worked in a litigation section for many years. Many people in my section had no trouble transitioning to firms, big and small. Some stayed at the firms and you would also be surprised at how many came back! I was able to work well even after having three kids - however, I definitely needed a nanny who could stay late and was ultra-reliable because I never knew when I would have to stay late or travel. My spouse worked/works in a BigLaw firm, so he was not able to cover for me. I went back after kid 3 for 2 years and tried to minimize my travel time because it was too hard logistically to do it anymore. When it became obvious that the travel was going to pick up again I decided to leave. |
Anonymous
I was just about to ask that. I am a woman and while I was treated perfectly equitably at BigLaw, I watched several women get pushed out after they had kids -- sudden bad reviews, nasty comments, one outright firing within weeks of announcing a pregnancy (and this was an attorney who was a top biller). I didn't have kids yet and made the decision to get out of BigLaw before I did. I haven't seen nearly anything that egregious in the government, though I am at a small agency, not DOJ. I have heard that many women leave the litigating sections of DOJ for family reasons as well ... perhaps others can speak to that. Of course, if you are done having kids, that may not be an issue for you at all. |
Anonymous
| I was in a section of DOJ where the travel wound up being too much for me. I applied to other sections as openings came up, and wound up getting a position that was a better fit for me. I still do some travel - about six two day trips a year. Honestly, since it isn't that often, relatively speaking, I find the occasional travel fun and a break of sorts from my ordinary mom responsibilities. |
Anonymous
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My husband works in Biglaw, and is now looking to either do Office of General Counsel for a Government Department, or work for the DOJ. He did a Federal Clerkship, went to a top 5 law school, and was on the Law Review.
Which route is more likely to open doors? And if he works for the DOJ, which is more prestigious, AUSA, or a DOJ trial position? Also, which route will be more family-friendly? Thanks! |