Department of Justice (DOJ) control over executive branch litigation is often debated in the context of broad themes in administrative law.1 Although important and illuminating, the central inquiry-to what extent is centralization of litigation an essential aspect of presidential control over executive branch policymaking-ignores the core aspect of the employment relationship between DOJ and its attorneys. It turns out that seemingly mundane aspects of the employment, such as wages, job responsibility, and recruitment of DOJ attorneys, raise intriguing and difficult questions of professional responsibility and institutional design.2 This essay explores these ignored questions of DOJ compensation, recruiting, and staffing. The analysis starts with an obvious but largely unexplored question: Why do bright new attorneys forgo the salary offered by private law firms and instead choose to work for DOJ? I conclude that young attorneys choose DOJ because of the significant responsibility government practice provides. This explanation, however, prompts the more difficult question taken up in the second part of the paper: Why do the United States and its officers and agencies entrust complex, difficult, and profoundly important litigation to neophyte attorneys? A private client with substantial resources and important stakes in litigation would not choose to have a brief primarily drafted by or crucial oral argument conducted by a third-year associate, no matter how capable that associate is at that stage of his or her career.