Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office is Training Ground for Legal Elite

Several big-name lawyers got their start in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, one of the most prestigious offices of prosecutors in the nation.

The office has “catapulted so many former prosecutors into other premier jobs that it has become, in a sense, one of the city’s most powerful clubs,” the New York Times reports. Its well-known alumni include former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Supreme Court Justices Felix Frankfurter and John Harlan, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elihu Root.

Another alum, Jeh Charles Johnson, has been nominated to be general counsel to the Defense Department. Many former prosecutors in the office have become prominent criminal defense lawyers. One of them, Ira Lee Sorkin, is representing accused financier Bernard Madoff.

Andrew McCarthy, now a commentator for National Review, told the Times he’s proud that the office is on his resume. “Of all the clubs I’ve ever been in, it’s the best one to be in,” he said.