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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If your ultimate goal is BigLaw partnership, you should go work at BigLaw now.  As a general rule, a few years at DOJ is not going to put you "ahead" on the partnership track.  People who go straight from government to BigLaw partnership have generally practiced for at least 8-10 years minimum, and attained some sort of high profile position.  And even so, many firms may still offer only a Counsel position. If you do 4 years at DOJ, you may get recruited by firms as a litigation associate, but you will be on equal footing with any fourth year lateral from another large firm. And frankly, you may, depending on what work you do at DOJ, be a much tougher sell than a typical fourth year lateral - your experience many not be particularly applicable, and some partners are going to question whether someone who comes from the government will have the necessary work ethic. 
The more typical track is to start at BigLaw, get a good reputation, and then as a senior or mid-level associate, go work in some highly relevant government office (i.e Antitrust Division foran Antitrust Associate). That may allow you to leapfrog your career somewhat, though again it is no guaruntee.  [/quote]

Agreed. I think DOJ Honors is common enough that it does not give you a huge leg up for partnership purposes. In fact, I have talked to former DOJ honors attys who are now biglaw midlevels who say that it took some effort for them to find a biglaw position and they didn't feel assured that they would get one; I know people who have worked to transition out of DOJ once they had familiies, needed to buy a house, build up savings etc. and were worried that biglaw would be unattainable. In contrast, biglaw midlevels can move between firms reasonably easily (before they get really senior). In order to get a leg up on partnership, I think you need to be coming from the gov't AND be a subject matter expert in some area that is really important to firms - Dodd Frank, antitrust etc. I'm not sure that 3-4 yrs in DOJ Honors gives you that, even though it probably gives you more trial experience than many biglaw senior partners.[/quote]

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