Academic

I've noted that the SDNY prosecutors tend to leave their government jobs for partnerships at New York law firms - something that is not replicated by other government employees.  Why is this?

Orin Kerr argues, quite reasonably, that

these numbers don?t reflect beefed up white collar enforcement as much as the realities of who the SDNY tends to hire. The U.S. Attorney?s Office in the SDNY is very competitive, and it tends to draw a lot of high-powered litigation associates from top New York firms. Those lawyers come to the SDNY and spend a few years to get trial experience. But they know that living on a government salary over the long term would require a pretty big shift in their lifestyles given the very high costs of living in or near Manhattan. So after they hit their minimum year commitment (3 or 4 years, if I recall), they cycle back to major law firms in more senior positions (either senior counsel or partner) and start earning serious coin.

And, indeed, that's the point of many of these shouting-distance-of-Manhattan prosecutor jobs; one gets one's trials, and then one goes to a white collar defense firm, and never sees a trial again.  None of this, by the way suggests that the fact that government service is often followed by private practice means that there's anything corrupt or captured about the work that these government employees do.

I do disagree with Orin about the beefed-up white collar enforcement thing, which I think did happen, and which Orin thinks didn't.  My guess is that big New York law firms barely, if at all, had white collar practices in the 1980s. Now they all do - including transactional firms like Wachtell Lipton that, generally, are as uninterested in litigation as they can possibly be.  One reason for this change might be market failure - hey, who knew that we could get rich representing companies in investigations related to government enforcement activities?  Another might be because the government stepped up its white collar enforcement work between the Eisenhower era and today, and I think that probably is the bulk of the reason why guys who prosecuted Enron like David Anders are partners at firms like Wachtell Lipton today.