Government Lawyers Seek New Jobs With Change to Trump Administration

WASHINGTON — Federal government attorneys are searching for other opportunities in the private sector in anticipation of widespread layoffs when Donald Trump takes over as president.

Legal recruiting firms in Washington, D.C., report a surge in demand from job applicants in recent weeks.

“Cabinet choices and potential heads of agencies are more controversial than previous administrations,” said Mason Kalfus, founder of the Washington legal search firm Zenith Legal Inc. “That is certainly going to drive some people to employment outside the government, at least temporarily.”

Many federal employees were concerned they would lose their jobs during the first Trump administration but most maintained their employment, Kalfus said.

“There is fear that it will happen this time,” he said.

The fears are being driven by Trump’s appointment of billionaire Elon Musk and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy as co-heads of a Department of Government Efficiency..

They say their efficiency campaign can slash $2 trillion from the federal budget, largely through drastic cuts in government regulations and massive layoffs.

They gave indications of which government agencies would endure the worst of the layoffs. 

They include the Justice Department, the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Justice Department employs more than 10,000 lawyers, the Education Department about 600 and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau about 150 along with support staff.

Trump blames the Justice Department for what he says were politically-motivated investigations and prosecutions of him for election interference and mishandling classified government documents.

Pam Bondi, his nominee for U.S. attorney general, has said Justice Department attorneys who investigated Trump might be the next ones to face criminal charges.

“The prosecutors will be prosecuted. The bad ones. The investigators will be investigated,” Bondi told Fox News last year.

More than 44,000 attorneys serve in the federal government, according to a U.S. Office of Personnel Management report this year. Many of them enforce the kinds of regulations Trump seeks to eliminate.

Ramaswamy said in a post on X Tuesday that he expects the layoffs to continue until the nation’s 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026.

Musk and Ramaswamy are scheduled to meet with Republican congressional leaders Thursday to discuss their plans to cut government spending. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, organized a DOGE Caucus to coordinate the Senate government reform efforts with the Trump administration.

Trump transition team spokesperson Brian Hughes tried to be more conciliatory in a recent statement.

“The Trump administration will have a place for people serving in government who are committed to defending the rights of the American people, putting America first, and ensuring the best use of working men and women’s tax dollars,” he said.

Stephen Nelson, a legal recruiter for the executive search firm The McCormick Group, said government employees often look for new jobs when there is a change in administration but not as many as this time.

“It increased substantially after the election” because of Trump administration plans for layoffs, he said.

Fear of job loss is only part of the reason some government attorneys are looking for private sector employment, Nelson said.

“Many of them don’t want to work in this administration anyway even if they did have a job,” he said. “The approaches to the rule of the law between the Biden administration and the Trump administration are radically different.”

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