Trump’s Exiting Government Lawyers Swamp DC Firms With Resumes

Big Law firms in Washington, D.C., are being inundated with resumes from lawyers frozen out of their government jobs.

“We’re seeing probably at least double the amount of usual applicants,” said Haley Lelah, global director of talent acquisition and integration at McDermott Will & Emery. “This is definitely a unique situation.”

Resumes are flowing from lawyers who have worked at the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and Internal Revenue Service, said Kristin Koehler, managing partner of Sidley Austin’s DC office. “There’s high numbers of them and really extraordinary talent that’s out on the market right now,” she said.

President Donald Trump’s ousting of federal employees, including agency attorneys, has created the pool of talent turning to the private sector. Lawyers are leaving US agencies in droves by force or voluntarily after the new administration shifted agency priorities, froze hiring and slashed spending.

The Trump administration’s firings in the early weeks of his return to the White House span the federal government, from the CFPB to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the US Forest Service. They include Biden-era Justice Department holdouts in top prosecutor roles in Baltimore and Seattle to DOJ officials who worked on investigation’s into Trump’s actions following his 2020 election loss.

Around 500 employees at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. accepted the administration’s deferred resignation offer. “So many people are feeling so unsettled,” said Dan Binstock, a partner at recruiting firm Garrison & Sisson, who’s been a legal recruiter for over 20 years. “It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before and we’re still trying to wrap our heads around it too.”

Justine Donahue, a partner at recruiting firm Macrae, said many of her clients are looking to leave government because of job insecurity or fear they may soon be targeted by Trump. “Every recruiter, every networking person, every firm is seeing exponentially more,” she said.

The unprecedented number of people hitting the job market at one time is advantageous for law firms, said Stephen Springer, managing partner of legal recruiter Major Lindsey Africa’s DC office. But the legal operations have limited needs for lawyers straight out of government, he said.

“There’s only so many dollars that they can put forward to people that are highly skilled, and will probably be very successful in the private sector, but don’t carry an immediate book of business with them,” Springer said.

Prominent firms have already begun making additions to their DC outposts. McGuireWoods added four Washington partners before the election and Latham & Watkins picked up the US co-head of A&O Shearman’s energy practice, Scott Cockerham, in Washington in September.

But many DC law firms lack positions for many of the lower-profile career attorneys leaving their government gigs. “Supply is already outweighing demand,” Macrae’s Donahue said.

Washington is known as the lawyer capital of the county. Only the New York metropolitan area has more attorneys than the 48,000 lawyers working in the DC region, according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Law firms are looking to be strategic in their recruitment from the pool of federal candidates. They want people who hold valuable experience that is difficult to cultivate in the private sector.

McDermott is looking to scoop up talent in areas including healthcare, white collar, and privacy work, Lelah said. The wave of increased job interest has prompted the firm to take a go-slow approach to make sure it doesn’t miss anything, she said.

“Making sure—because it’s constantly evolving—that we’re not making a short-term decision when we don’t have all the information,” Lelah said.