{"id":158496,"date":"2026-07-27T14:47:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/07\/27\/the-doj-dishonors-program-is-having-trouble-finding-takers\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T14:47:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:47:24","slug":"the-doj-dishonors-program-is-having-trouble-finding-takers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/07\/27\/the-doj-dishonors-program-is-having-trouble-finding-takers\/","title":{"rendered":"The DOJ (Dis)Honors Program Is Having Trouble Finding Takers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Justice Honors Program has spent decades selling itself as \u201cthe largest and most prestigious federal entry-level attorney hiring program of its kind.\u201d It was the front door to a career in federal law. For a lot of law students, it was the whole plan.<\/p>\n

But it is rapidly falling out of fashion.<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg Law<\/a>, four law school administrators say student interest in the program has cooled, in some cases sharply. Leah Gould, the assistant dean of public interest at Northwestern\u2019s Pritzker School of Law, used to walk about a dozen students a year through their honors and summer-internship applications. The number of interested students, she said, has \u201cdropped significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason won\u2019t shock anyone who has watched this DOJ operate.<\/p>\n

\n

Students worry that taking a job there now \u201cmight be read as an endorsement of the administration.\u201d That, Gould said, is \u201ctheir biggest concern.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A few short years ago, the notion the stink of a stint at the Justice Department might trail a young lawyer around for the rest of their career like old fish microwaved in the breakroom would have been laughable. But the students didn\u2019t invent that fear out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

The students are just reading the waterline. When the rats start streaming off a ship, you don\u2019t need a maritime license to figure out where it\u2019s headed \u2014 and they\u2019ve been streaming off this one since jump<\/a>. More than 10,000 federal lawyers have abandoned the government since the start of 2025, roughly one in five. DOJ alone has shed 21 percent of its attorneys, more than 2,600 of them, the immigration-litigation shop bled out<\/a>, the anti-migrant surge kept swallowing whatever was left<\/a>, and 1,200 former prosecutors eventually wrote the Senate<\/a> to say it out loud. The president waves off the empty desks as a feature, cheerfully describing the people he kept as chosen for loyalty over competence, which is just an admission that the smart ones left and the loyal ones stayed. Here\u2019s the part that would be funny if it weren\u2019t so grim: the ship is now so short-crewed it will take just about anyone. DOJ suspended its one-year experience requirement<\/a> so it could grab prosecutors fresh out of law school, begged for AUSAs on social media<\/a> like it was filling a kickball roster, dangled $25,000 signing bonuses, ran \u201cforward this to a friend\u201d recruiting<\/a>, and propped Trump\u2019s cronies up as \u201cspecial attorneys\u201d<\/a> whenever the real ones wandered off. The department that once sat atop a mountain of eager applicants is now mandating case quotas<\/a> to the prosecutors it hasn\u2019t lost yet. So when a 3L eyes the gangplank and declines to board, she isn\u2019t being dramatic, she\u2019s just the rat with a working nose.<\/p>\n

Daniela Kraiem, the assistant dean for career and professional development at American University\u2019s Washington College of Law, said watching peers lose offers and slog through shutdown chaos has made the program \u201ca less attractive option.\u201d Which is a tactful way to describe what has happened to the DOJ (dis)honors program over the past 18 months. This is, after all, the same program whose incoming class in early 2025 got their job offers yanked by automated email<\/a>, the same purge that left roughly 200 rescinded law students and lateral attorneys<\/a> scrambling for other work. Word gets around a law school fast.<\/p>\n

So where are students interested in starting their career (non-Biglaw version)? Gould said she\u2019s watching students steer toward state attorney general offices, \u201cwhere a lot of the action is anyway.\u201d Matt Nosanchuk, the dean for public interest and public service law at George Washington University Law School and himself a DOJ alum, said state and local AG offices increasingly \u201calign more closely with their particular interests and values.\u201d Angelica Afanador, a rising 3L at American who arrived in 2024 dreaming of fighting for voting rights at Main Justice, is now interning at the ACLU and eyeing nonprofit fellowships. The DOJ plan, she said, \u201cwithered away\u201d into something like \u201cthe antithesis of what I\u2019d hoped for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen, the program can keep calling itself the most prestigious entry-level job in American law, and maybe on paper it still is. But prestige is just other people\u2019s opinion of your choices, and a generation of law students has quietly decided this is one they\u2019d rather not spend the next 40 years explaining.<\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Trump\u2019s B.S. \u2018Efficiency\u2019 Effort Steals Jobs From Real J.D.s<\/a>
10,000 Federal Lawyers Are Gone And Trump\u2019s Response Basically Confirms Why They Left<\/a>
Pam Bondi\u2019s DOJ Lowers Hiring Standards After Driving Away Lawyers With Actual Experience<\/a>
Once-Elite DOJ Is Now Desperate For Lawyers, Resorts To \u2018Forward This To A Friend\u2019 Recruiting<\/a>
DOJ Rolls Out A Case Quota For The Prosecutors It Hasn\u2019t Lost Yet<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post The DOJ (Dis)Honors Program Is Having Trouble Finding Takers<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by Al Drago\/Bloomberg via Getty Images)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Department of Justice Honors Program has spent decades selling itself as \u201cthe largest and most prestigious federal entry-level attorney hiring program of its kind.\u201d It was the front door to a career in federal law. For a lot of law students, it was the whole plan.<\/p>\n

But it is rapidly falling out of fashion.<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg Law<\/a>, four law school administrators say student interest in the program has cooled, in some cases sharply. Leah Gould, the assistant dean of public interest at Northwestern\u2019s Pritzker School of Law, used to walk about a dozen students a year through their honors and summer-internship applications. The number of interested students, she said, has \u201cdropped significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason won\u2019t shock anyone who has watched this DOJ operate.<\/p>\n

\n

Students worry that taking a job there now \u201cmight be read as an endorsement of the administration.\u201d That, Gould said, is \u201ctheir biggest concern.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A few short years ago, the notion the stink of a stint at the Justice Department might trail a young lawyer around for the rest of their career like old fish microwaved in the breakroom would have been laughable. But the students didn\u2019t invent that fear out of nowhere.<\/p>\n

The students are just reading the waterline. When the rats start streaming off a ship, you don\u2019t need a maritime license to figure out where it\u2019s headed \u2014 and they\u2019ve been streaming off this one since jump<\/a>. More than 10,000 federal lawyers have abandoned the government since the start of 2025, roughly one in five. DOJ alone has shed 21 percent of its attorneys, more than 2,600 of them, the immigration-litigation shop bled out<\/a>, the anti-migrant surge kept swallowing whatever was left<\/a>, and 1,200 former prosecutors eventually wrote the Senate<\/a> to say it out loud. The president waves off the empty desks as a feature, cheerfully describing the people he kept as chosen for loyalty over competence, which is just an admission that the smart ones left and the loyal ones stayed. Here\u2019s the part that would be funny if it weren\u2019t so grim: the ship is now so short-crewed it will take just about anyone. DOJ suspended its one-year experience requirement<\/a> so it could grab prosecutors fresh out of law school, begged for AUSAs on social media<\/a> like it was filling a kickball roster, dangled $25,000 signing bonuses, ran \u201cforward this to a friend\u201d recruiting<\/a>, and propped Trump\u2019s cronies up as \u201cspecial attorneys\u201d<\/a> whenever the real ones wandered off. The department that once sat atop a mountain of eager applicants is now mandating case quotas<\/a> to the prosecutors it hasn\u2019t lost yet. So when a 3L eyes the gangplank and declines to board, she isn\u2019t being dramatic, she\u2019s just the rat with a working nose.<\/p>\n

Daniela Kraiem, the assistant dean for career and professional development at American University\u2019s Washington College of Law, said watching peers lose offers and slog through shutdown chaos has made the program \u201ca less attractive option.\u201d Which is a tactful way to describe what has happened to the DOJ (dis)honors program over the past 18 months. This is, after all, the same program whose incoming class in early 2025 got their job offers yanked by automated email<\/a>, the same purge that left roughly 200 rescinded law students and lateral attorneys<\/a> scrambling for other work. Word gets around a law school fast.<\/p>\n

So where are students interested in starting their career (non-Biglaw version)? Gould said she\u2019s watching students steer toward state attorney general offices, \u201cwhere a lot of the action is anyway.\u201d Matt Nosanchuk, the dean for public interest and public service law at George Washington University Law School and himself a DOJ alum, said state and local AG offices increasingly \u201calign more closely with their particular interests and values.\u201d Angelica Afanador, a rising 3L at American who arrived in 2024 dreaming of fighting for voting rights at Main Justice, is now interning at the ACLU and eyeing nonprofit fellowships. The DOJ plan, she said, \u201cwithered away\u201d into something like \u201cthe antithesis of what I\u2019d hoped for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listen, the program can keep calling itself the most prestigious entry-level job in American law, and maybe on paper it still is. But prestige is just other people\u2019s opinion of your choices, and a generation of law students has quietly decided this is one they\u2019d rather not spend the next 40 years explaining.<\/p>\n

Earlier:<\/strong> Trump\u2019s B.S. \u2018Efficiency\u2019 Effort Steals Jobs From Real J.D.s<\/a>
10,000 Federal Lawyers Are Gone And Trump\u2019s Response Basically Confirms Why They Left<\/a>
Pam Bondi\u2019s DOJ Lowers Hiring Standards After Driving Away Lawyers With Actual Experience<\/a>
Once-Elite DOJ Is Now Desperate For Lawyers, Resorts To \u2018Forward This To A Friend\u2019 Recruiting<\/a>
DOJ Rolls Out A Case Quota For The Prosecutors It Hasn\u2019t Lost Yet<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of\u00a0The Jabot podcast<\/a>, and co-host of\u00a0Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email\u00a0her<\/a>\u00a0with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky\u00a0@Kathryn1<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Justice Honors Program has spent decades selling itself as \u201cthe largest and most prestigious federal entry-level attorney hiring program of its kind.\u201d It was the front door to a career in federal law. For a lot of law students, it was the whole plan. But it is rapidly falling out of fashion. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":158462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IMG_5243-1-scaled-e1623338814705-620x568-ZCJ52r.jpg?fit=620%2C568&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}