High-Level, "Tenured" Lawyers

Abstract

Government lawyers can be broadly categorized as either political or civil service appointees. The political appointees constitute a thin layer at or near the top the hierarchy government lawyers. They include, most prominently, presidential appointees-Officers the United States who must be nominated and confirmed by the Senate prior to their appointment.1 They also include a variety lesser lawyers who are exempt from most the civil service laws.2 Such exempt inferior Officers include, for example, the lawyers in the White House Counsel's office and so-called Schedule C lawyers who hold positions of a confidential or policy-determining nature scattered throughout the bureaucracy.3 The civil service lawyers form the much larger base the hierarchy below the thin top layer. They shall be referred to here as lawyers, because, as in the case tenured academics, they have an expectation continued government employment unless and until they are terminated for cause following cumbersome due process formalities.4 These tenure rights, which are created by the civil service laws and regulations,5 do not confer the right to continue in any particular job or function. Tenured lawyers can be removed from their position if their agency is abolished or is subject to a reduction in force.6 Generally speaking, however, they cannot be fired, demoted, or have their pay reduced unless they have been proven guilty some dereliction duty.7