Administration changes are frequently times of upheaval for government attorneys. Political appointees that came in with a party see themselves out when the other guys take over government. But amongst the ways 2025 and the Trump II administration are not normal, is the pure chaos that is the government attorney job market. Because this year, it’s not just the political appointees that are moving — career attorneys are also in the job market.
As reported by ABA Journal, there are a lot of factors going into this trend. The uncertainty surrounding the funding freeze, the return to the office mandate, the unilaterally declaring an agency over are all parts of the reasons government attorneys want out this year. Plus as Dan Binstock, a partner at the Garrison recruiting firm, notes, all of a sudden government attorneys “feel uneasy about their jobs,” and they “don’t like the sense of uncertainty and unpredictability they are experiencing with the change of administrations, and it’s nothing like what I’ve seen in prior presidential election cycles.”
Which has led to an unprecedented recruiting cycle:
“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.
To make matters even worse, Drake notes there may not be “enough space for all the lawyers looking to leave the federal government.” Drake continues, “We are working with candidates who are uncertain whether there is room for them to return to their former firms, so they are exploring multiple options.”
And complicating the situation is clients that don’t want firms with attorneys that come from the government:
Also unusual, legal recruiters say, is pushback over law firms hiring prior administration lawyers. In December 2024, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on X that he would withhold business from law firms that hired high-level Biden administration Securities and Exchange Commission lawyers because their policies hurt the cryptocurrency industry, according to Reuters.
“It’s quite simple,” Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal wrote in response to an email sent by the ABA Journal. “[E]very professional should expect to be known by the company they keep. If you were a former SEC official that refused to tell us the rules before suing us for violating the rules, we aren’t interested in hiring you.”
It’s almost like they’re emboldened by officials at the highest levels maintaining enemy lists.
While not every government lawyer has the luxury of time in their job search, if you *do* it’s probably in your best interests to wait at least a little while before bailing. The glut of job seekers will peter out and, as Binstock notes, your stock is likely to go up. “People are thinking, I just need to get out, but they may be more marketable six months or a year from now,” he said. “They will have had interactions with the new administration and a better understanding of its internal workings, and that will make them more valuable in the private sector.”
For those soon-to-be former government attorneys battling this job market: may the odds be ever in your favor.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].