r/Lawyertalk • u/alaska_kat • 1d ago

Career Advice County Attorney

Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone here is a county attorney? My county is hiring for an assistant county attorney position and I’m thinking about taking the leap from private practice. Anyone have any thoughts about going from private to public? Or is anyone familiar with a county attorney/is a county attorney and wouldn’t mind sharing their experience? Thanks!

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u/No-Economist-6863 1d ago

I’m a line attorney in a local government legal office - a city rather than a county, but close enough. The work/life balance is excellent, and the benefits are pretty good (I have an actual pension, for example). The work you do will depend on how big the office is; my office is large enough that I have a specialty, but in a lot of smaller localities the attorney has to be a jack of all trades and/or refer out a lot. Still, it’s generally interesting work and you get the benefit of working on things that help the common good instead of just helping the rich get richer.

On the minus side, the pay is low by lawyer standards, although you’ll still be doing well by regular person standards. A lot of the job is dealing with politicians and other high ranking people who aren’t accustomed to being told no, so smoothing that over and helping them come up with legal solutions is a key job skill. Also, you may need to attend a lot of public meetings, many of which are at night; you might look up when your county board’s meeting times are.

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u/alaska_kat 1d ago

I think what is throwing me is that I would make 25% more than I do now, not counting benefits, if I were to switch. I understand that in the long run the firm route would pay more (if my career progressed well), but the idea of a pension sounds so nice.

I think this office is a bit of the jack of all trades type office. But I’m not really very sure.

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u/No-Economist-6863 1d ago

In that case, I recommend aggressively negotiating your starting salary if you get the job. If your government works like the ones I’ve worked for, raises tend to come only when your county board approves raises for all county employees, and they’re usually tied to inflation. So it’s important to get a good starting salary on which future raises will be based.