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US government lawyers are clamoring for jobs at corporate law firms in anticipation of major cuts to the administrative state under Donald Trump.
Hundreds of employees from agencies including the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission sent potential applications to major companies, their leaders told the Financial Times.
“The last few weeks have been full of meetings with law firm managers. . . telling me they’re seeing applications from all different agencies,” said Michelle Fivel, a recruiter at Hatch Henderson Fivel, who was also contacted directly by government employees.
One department head at a leading New York firm, who asked not to be named, said they were “inundated” with resumes, including lawyers with decades of government experience.
While such an outflow is common whenever the White House changes hands, this year’s was higher than average, Fivel and law firm executives said.
Political appointees in the upper echelons of critical agencies tend to resign or be forced out under the new administration, but the attempted government exodus is now expanding to include career civil servants, the people said, while lawyers expect entire teams to be removed and regulations to be slashed.
The president-elect has vowed to eliminate the Department of Education entirely, while his allies have floated the possibility of shrinking the Justice Department, closing the FBI and slashing other agencies.
Elon Musk, who Trump asked to co-lead efforts to improve government efficiency, has backed his co-chairman Vivek Ramaswamy’s plan to lay off 75 percent of the federal workforce, although those previously charged with cutting the state are skeptical that it can be achieved.
However big the cull ends up being, “it’s going to be an interesting time for the company to pick up really talented people,” Frank Ryan, chairman of DLA Piper, said of the transition period.
Despite Trump’s promise to cut red tape, “our analysis is that there will be (more) regulation in some segments of the economy,” Ryan added, singling out the administration’s planned tariffs and restrictions on global trade.
Widge Devaney, a former federal prosecutor who leads Baker McKenzie’s North American litigation and government enforcement groups, said that after Trump’s initial nomination of controversial former congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general, “you saw a little more concern about what the change was going to be.” and rushing some career lawyers at the DoJ to leave the government.
Gaetz’s withdrawal from the process and Trump’s subsequent appointment of former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to the post led to “more of a sense of normalcy” at the DoJ, he added. “I don’t know if career employees will necessarily rush for the door.”
For those who do decide to flee federal agencies, their challenge is that they “don’t come with a ready-made book of business,” which is common among lawyers already in private practice, Fivel said.
Companies “only have a certain amount of bandwidth” for people who come directly from government, although some of them “have very impressive Rolodexes,” she added.
After several slow years, dealmaking was also expected to surge under the Trump administration, due to lower interest rates and more favorable tax structures, which could have a knock-on effect on employment, Fivel said. “When the M&A flow picks up, that’s when we really see hiring of all kinds increase even in all the other practice areas.”
