President Donald Trump’s push to restore accountability across the federal government has triggered a major exodus of attorneys from federal agencies, with more than 10,000 lawyers leaving government service since the beginning of 2025, according to a New York Times analysis of federal employment data.
The departures reveal the growing divide between the Trump administration and a legal establishment that has increasingly aligned itself with progressive politics and left-wing advocacy organizations.
According to the report, roughly one in five government lawyers employed at the end of 2024 had left by March 2026. Despite federal agencies hiring approximately 3,200 lawyers during that period, departures still dramatically outpaced recruitment.
Overall, the federal government employed about 37,000 civilian lawyers at the end of March, a 17% decline compared with late 2024.
The losses have hit several agencies particularly hard. The Department of Education lost more than half of its lawyers, while the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Labor, Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture all experienced steep declines in legal staffing.
The Justice Department saw the largest raw-number decline, dropping from nearly 13,000 lawyers to just over 10,300.
The only major federal agency that increased its legal staff was the Department of Homeland Security, where attorney ranks grew by 21% as the administration expanded immigration enforcement efforts.
Many departing attorneys openly acknowledged discomfort with Trump administration policies, particularly efforts to scale back environmental regulation, overhaul civil rights enforcement and crack down on illegal immigration.
“There’s all this awareness that people in the federal government are dissatisfied, are angry, are frustrated, and want no part of it,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said. Weiser added that many lawyers are instead seeking work with Democratic attorneys general offices and nonprofit groups suing the administration.
“That’s translating directly to people saying, ‘I want to be part of organizations that actually operate with integrity, that people want to be a part of, that people feel good about doing the right thing,’” he said.
The exodus has also exposed what critics on the right have argued is an entrenched ideological imbalance within elite legal institutions and the federal bureaucracy.
Law students interviewed in the report expressed fears that working in the Trump administration could damage their professional reputations among peers and future employers.
“A lot of people I’ve spoken to just in the last few months have said that they would look down on a person if they had a federal job on their résumé that they started during this administration,” said Georgetown University Law Center student Scott Bourque.
“And some people have explicitly said they would see a person willing to go to work at this D.O.J. as somebody they couldn’t trust,” he added.
The White House defended its hiring efforts and dismissed concerns that the administration is struggling to attract qualified legal talent.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said the administration “remains totally dedicated to empowering and hiring hard-working Americans who are committed to public service and delivering on the president’s many promises to the American people.”
“The individuals who are hired are extremely qualified and talented,” she added.