Now that Congress has passed the supplemental appropriations bill (H.R. 244) to fund the U.S. government for the rest of Fiscal Year 2017, combined with the lifting of President Trump’s hiring freeze, it’s time to see where federal hiring might be going over the next five months.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) received an additional $2 billion. NIH has a large number of legal and law-related offices, including:
- Office of the General Counsel, Public Health Division, NIH Branch. This office currently has 13 attorneys.
- Ethics Offices. NIH’s 30 ethics offices currently employ 13 attorneys as Ethics Counsels and many more in JD Advantage (jobs for which a law degree is preferred, but not necessarily required) positions.
- NIH Office of Technology Transfer (two offices) plus eight Institute Tech Transfer Offices.
- Office of Legislative Policy and Analysis
- Office of the Ombudsman
- Multiple Compliance offices
- Two Research Integrity offices
- Two Licensing offices
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) received a $15 million boost. ARPA-E has a Chief Counsel’s Office and a Tech Transfer Office. Note. The Trump administration wants to eliminate ARPA-E.
The Department of Defense (DoD) received an additional $20 billion. DoD has several hundred law offices as well as many military and civilian attorneys scattered throughout the defense establishment in program and line offices.
$20 million was appropriated for federal courts.