Trump administration sees striking exodus of legal talent
The departure of more than 10,000 federal lawyers has left some agencies without sufficient staff and has boosted the ranks of Democratic state attorneys general offices and advocacy groups.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s upheaval of the federal government has led to an exodus of more than 10,000 lawyers since the beginning of 2025, a striking loss of legal talent that has left some agencies pushing to find attorneys to carry out his agenda.
Roughly 1 in 5 lawyers who worked in the government at the end of 2024 had left by March, according to a New York Times analysis of federal employment data.
Along with the usual retirements and turnover in the federal workforce, the last year saw deep staffing cuts and the resignations of some staff members who objected to Trump’s policies. Their departures show how rapidly the president has eroded the image of the federal government as the gold standard for lawyers seeking public service roles.
Instead, many of those looking for such work are flocking to the offices of Democratic state attorneys general and nonprofits that are challenging administration policies in the courts, boosting Trump’s opponents with seasoned lawyers.
“There’s all this awareness that people in the federal government are dissatisfied, are angry, are frustrated, and want no part of it,” said Phil Weiser, Colorado’s attorney general, who has hired 22 lawyers from across the federal government in the past year. “That’s translating directly to people saying, ‘I want to be part of organizations that actually operate with integrity, that people want to be a part of, that people feel good about doing the right thing.’”
Wariness of the Trump administration is also palpable inside law schools, where many aspiring lawyers who would have once jumped at the chance to hold a federal government job are seeking alternative paths, according to faculty members and students.
While federal agencies brought on about 3,200 lawyers since the beginning of 2025, departures still outpaced hiring, data shows. Lawyers also exited the government at a faster rate than turnover in the overall workforce. All told, the federal government employed about 37,000 civilian lawyers at the end of March, 17% fewer than it did at the end of 2024.
The Justice Department, which employs more than one-quarter of all government lawyers, had the largest decline in raw numbers. But other agencies — including the Department of Education, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development — lost an even greater share of attorneys.
This article originally appeared in the New York Times.