r/moderatepolitics • u/Interesting_Total_98 • 1d ago

News Article Trump Administration Sees Striking Exodus of Legal Talent

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/us/politics/trump-administration-exodus-of-lawyers.html
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u/CovetousOldSinner 1d ago edited 1d ago

Imagine the exodus of talent. These aren’t jobs you can just hire someone off the street for. It takes years to become a talented government prosecutor/attorney. That’s true for most every government profession. Top that off with the layoffs/resignations across every agency. Every government agency will be less effective because of the Trump administration.

Also consider, one of the few advantages of working for the government is the stability. Now that it’s gone, what is going to draw talented people? 

These agencies are going to feel the ripple effects of this administration for decades. 

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u/onlyonedayatatime 1d ago

I’m one of the attorneys in this article, and your comment is so, so true. My regional office of a small agency had the entire supervisory team resign. They’d all worked at this agency their entire careers - first job out of law school through the Honors Fellow program. All gone. Even if I ever felt I could go back, that’s a massive amount of institutional knowledge out the window.

Federal agencies really were the gold star of government attorney jobs. And my colleagues were all exceptional people; I think there’s some self-selection with those who turn down law firm salaries for public service. (I took a roundabout way and had to learn through experience that the law firm work wasn’t for me.)

I get incredibly sad thinking of what my small agency lost in just our regional office, with the same happening to every agency in every office across the country.