Before the official administration change, federal government lawyers had already been scrambling to get out. Legal recruiters say that for months they have been getting an unprecedented number of calls, texts and emails from federal government lawyers looking for jobs in private practice.
“Oh, my goodness,” says Lauren Drake, a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of recruiting firm Macrae. “We’ve never truly seen anything like this.”
Drake says that Macrae has already landed double the number of private-sector jobs for government lawyers than the last presidential election cycle.
The federal government is divided into career lawyers, who are supposed to provide continuity by working no matter which party is in power, and political hires, intended to further the goals of the administration in office. Whenever a new president takes office, political hires tend to leave their roles. In addition, some career lawyers may also choose to time their departure for a change in administration.
However, this election cycle has seen an unusual amount of career attorney panic, says Valerie Fontaine of SeltzerFontaine, a legal search consulting group in Los Angeles.
Law firms, particularly in D.C. and New York, want to hire the talent leaving the federal government, but they are overwhelmed by the number of candidates reaching out to them, legal recruiters say. Additionally, there may not be “enough space for all the lawyers looking to leave the federal government,” according to Drake.
Full article –https://www.abajournal.com/web/article/government-attorneys-scrambling-to-leave