Bucking the Recession Trend: Federal Government Attorney Jobs Have Been on the Rise
By: Maria Hibbard
Although NALP just released a dismal report on the employment statistics for law grads of the class of 2011, legal jobs in the federal government may represent something of a growth area. I spent some time in FedScope, the Office of Personnel Management’s federal human resources database, and found that over the last 5 years, the number of attorneys working for the government in jobs classified as “general attorney” has increased by almost 6,000. These jobs include attorney-advisor positions, and trial attorney positions, and other jobs for which a J.D. is required. (FYI – see how the government defines “general attorney” in these 35 pages) Since the general mood throughout the Great Recession has been less jobs for everyone, everywhere, I expected to see a steady downward trend in the number of federal legal jobs as well–instead, the number attorneys employed in federal agencies has increased steadily by about 1,000 jobs per year from 2007-2011.
|
Employment |
SEP 2007 |
SEP 2008 |
SEP 2009 |
SEP 2010 |
SEP 2011 |
Most Current Quarter |
| Cabinet Level Agencies |
21,351 |
22,182 |
23,501 |
24,342 |
24,604 |
24,604 |
| Large Independent Agencies (1000 or more employees) |
7,510 |
7,702 |
8,486 |
9,351 |
9,621 |
9,621 |
| Medium Independent Agencies (100-999 employees) |
896 |
944 |
1,018 |
1,114 |
1,270 |
1,270 |
| Small Independent Agencies (less than 100 employees) |
88 |
100 |
96 |
107 |
119 |
119 |
| Agency – All |
29,845 |
30,928 |
33,101 |
34,914 |
35,614 |
35,614 |
Although we don’t know if these new jobs are entry-level or more advanced career positions, this is certainly an encouraging trend. All of these newly-created attorney positions in the federal government aren’t going away even as the economy rebuilds–from December 2010-December 2011, the number of attorneys employed by federal agencies held steady at around 35,000. What’s more, in 2009 the Partnership for Public service predicted in their Where the Jobs Are report that the federal government would need to hire over 23,000 legal-related jobs in the next three years, 5800 of which would be attorney positions. The general employment market may be suffering, but the federal government has certainly shown a need for more attorneys–in part because Baby Boomers have begun to retire in large numbers.
So–where, exactly, are all of these mystical federal attorney positions? Reference our Federal Government Resources page for more information, but some quick stats on “General Attorney” positions from FedScope:
- 10,796 at the Department of Justice
- 2, 297 at the Department of the Treasury
- 2,035 at the Department of Homeland Security
- 1, 639 at the Securities and Exchange Commission
- 1, 127 at the Environmental Protection Agency
Changes in federal hiring for recent graduates are about to take place, too–look out for the “Pathways Program” set to take effect in July, a program aimed at making federal hiring more streamlined and transparent. We’ll post more about it on PSLawNet at that time, but in the meantime– federal attorney hiring is a positive trend that warrants some thought.