Sequester

March 1st, 2013 / By Deborah J. Merritt

What does the sequester mean for law school graduates? Those who work for the federal government may have already received notice of upcoming furloughs. The Department of Justice, for example, has notified Assistant U.S. Attorneys that they will be furloughed for up to fourteen days. That doesn’t sound like much, but there are only 260 weekdays in a year. Fourteen days of furlough add up to a 5.4% pay cut.

Add to that the special nature of professional work. Furloughed prosecutors cannot offer to work free on their furlough days, and they must stay away from the workplace on those days. But their cases won’t go away. US Attorney’s offices, like all other offices affected by the sequester, will face an unpalatable choice: Do the attorneys maintain their current workload, working harder on the days they’re at work–for less pay? Or do they cut back on prosecutions?

The same cuts will affect our graduates who work as FBI agents, policy analysts, IRS employees, and any other type of federal government worker. As the cuts affect state budgets, particularly in states that rely upon defense spending, JDs who work for state and local governments will suffer as well.

That’s just the first chapter. With current employees furloughed and the budget future so uncertain, government agencies are likely to cut back hiring–even more than they have done already. We also have to worry about indirect effects on lawyering jobs, as furloughs and other cutbacks ripple through the economy. Fewer FBI agents, US attorneys, and government regulators means fewer investigations and prosecutions. That’s less work for the lawyers who defend the accused (from small-time drug dealers to big-time corporate fraudsters) or who advise companies on complying with government regulation.

We can hope that Congress will come to its senses quickly, once the effects of sequestration sink in. But even then, there will be sobering news for our graduates. The sequester reflects a period of profound political and cultural malaise over government spending. Opposition to that spending occurs on top of the economic forces that already threaten information-heavy professional jobs like lawyering.

Don’t get me wrong: The harshest effects of anti-government attitudes fall upon the poor. We should care passionately about how our economy and government are leaving so many people behind. But, since this blog focuses on legal education, we also need to ask what all of this means for our graduates–and for what we do as law schools. At one time, government jobs were a first choice for some law graduates and a satisfying fallback for others. Those jobs are more in doubt now than they have been for more than fifty years. How does that affect our work as law schools?