Any other humble public servants here? How’s life?

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I interned with a few state and federal administrative agencies through law school. Now I'm in private practice and miss government dearly. Hoping to make the switch back sooner than later

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Thinking of making the move. How do you like it?

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Generally speaking, I love it. It has moments that feel thankless and stupid, though maybe everybody feels that way about their gig sometimes. I find the work fascinating and my colleagues are decent and funny people.

That being said, the money isn’t horrible but definitely nowhere near biglaw. I went to school with government or public interest in mind, so I’ve always known I would never make it past a certain salary bracket. But, never having to track time is pretty great. I generally work around 50 hours a week, maybe more if a trial is coming up, and get to have dinner with my spouse most nights and hike with my dogs on the weekends.

Not myself though definitely am an aspiring public servant. My partner works at mid sized federal agency. Seems like a dream. Six figure salary, works mostly 9-6. When he’s busy it’s cause he’s getting stand up time at a trial that makes front page legal news. Downside is we have to live in DC.

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I’ve had to cancel all of my plans this holiday weekend because of a big project that just came up this week, so it hardly feels like I’m in government practice, but it’s great most of the time. Sometimes 60+ hours a week, sometimes I’m working 40 hours for a month or two in a row with no work on the weekends. I suppose it’s better than billable hours.

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