The U.S. Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C., aka “Main Justice” (photo by David Lat).
Even though we’re not even into the fourth quarter yet, many folks are looking ahead to 2020 — and beyond. For example, the political and journalistic worlds are intensely focused on the 2020 presidential election right now, even though it’s more than a year away. Many people are ready for a new administration (and not just die-hard Democrats, but independents and even Republicans who are tired of Donald Trump).
If and when we see President Trump replaced by a Democrat — say, President Joe Biden or President Elizabeth Warren — expect the U.S. Department of Justice to be flooded with applications from young (and not-so-young) lawyers. Whether justified or not, many attorneys who would otherwise be interested in government service are steering clear of the DOJ right now, either because they disagree with the Trump DOJ agenda or because they don’t want to be accused of complicity with the regime (even though Honors Program spots are career positions rather than political appointments, and most of what line attorneys do in the DOJ, which includes U.S. Attorney’s Offices as well as Main Justice, has nothing to do with Trump).
How can you get into the federal government before the stampede begins? Try applying now, while applications might not be at peak volume — and, if you’re eligible, consider the DOJ Honors Program.
As I’ve explained in the past, the Justice Department’s Attorney General’s Honors Program is “the largest and most prestigious federal entry-level attorney hiring program of its kind.” Unlike fellowships of a defined length (e.g., Skadden Fellowships for public interest work), Honors Program positions are generally positions of permanent employment (subject to just a few exceptions). So once you enter the DOJ through the Honors Program, you can build your entire legal career in government if you so choose. (One famous example: former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who joined the Department through the Honors Program in 1990 and remained in DOJ employ for the next three decades or so, until stepping down as DAG this past May.)
For the 2019-2020 Honors Program, there appear to be 221 positions (not counting the 20 to 22 possible slots for informal participants, mainly at U.S. Attorney’s Offices — which generally don’t hire entry-level attorneys, making the Honors Program especially enticing). This figure of 221 represents a slight uptick from last year’s cycle, when there were around 195 positions. The application deadline is September 8, 2019 — so if you’re interested, get a move on.
In writing about last year’s program, Elie Mystal complained about the high number of slots in the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), which he branded Trump’s “Deportation Forces” — 131 out of 195 positions . This year, the total number of Honors Program jobs is up, and the number of EOIR jobs is down — 102 out of 221 positions. So EOIR posts have gone from representing more than two-thirds of Honors Program slots (67 percent) to under half (46 percent).
(It should be noted that EOIR’s domination of Honors Program hiring is not a Trump Administration phenomenon. For example, back in 2016, the final year of President Barack Obama’s administration, EOIR slots also amounted to 46 percent of Honors Program openings.)
If you’re interested in government opportunities beyond the Justice Department, you have options as well. For example, here are other governmental honors programs and their deadlines (click on each department’s or agency’s name for more information):
These are just examples. For more opportunities, surf over to USA Jobs. Some of the deadlines are almost here, so act fast.
What about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Whether the CFPB will be doing any Honors Program hiring remains unclear.
In December 2017, the CFPB renamed its Honors Program, changing it from the Louis D. Brandeis Honors Attorney Program to the Joseph Story Honors Attorney Program (i.e., going from a liberal legal icon to a conservative one). In 2018, it seems that the renamed program didn’t do any hiring. As of now, the CFPB website tells prospective applicants to “check here starting fall 2019” (even though historically the CFPB Honors Program is usually taking applications by now, ahead of a mid-September deadline).
So has the Trump Administration quietly killed off the CFPB Honors Program? It wouldn’t be shocking, given the administration’s mixed feelings about the agency itself.
But if so, don’t count on it being dead forever. I’d expect robust hiring at the CFPB — for both the Honors Program and otherwise — under a President Elizabeth Warren.
The Attorney General’s Honors Program [U.S. Department of Justice]
David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer, speaker, and legal recruiter at Lateral Link, where he is a managing director in the New York office. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@laterallink.com.