America's 'Killer Elite' Lawyers Are All In One Prosecutor's Office In Manhattan

The most prestigious law gig in the U.S. may be the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, as noted by Nicholas Lemann in a New Yorker story.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York has enjoyed "top-dog status" ever since Teddy Roosevelt appointed former Secretary of War Henry Stimson to the post, Lemann writes in a profile of SEC chair Mary Jo White (a former U.S. attorney in that office).

Here's how Lemann describes that office:

If you're not a lawyer, and you meet a quiet, studious-seeming person and ask him what he does for a living, you may hear, "I'm an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York." Sounds dull, like "I'm a tax preparer." But the answer is a little like the one you get when you ask someone where he went to college and he says, "Um, Yale?" What you were really meant to hear was: "I'm a member of the Killer Elite, baby! I'm special ops. I'm strike force. Be very afraid!"

Assistant U.S. attorneys in the Southern District go to the best law schools and clerked for federal judges, Lemann writes. And, since the office is in the heart of New York City, they get to go after high rollers on Wall Street and mobsters.

"This gives them macho points in addition to their academic credentials," Lemann writes.

Ironically, these prosecutors are well positioned to get high-paying jobs at corporate law firms after they leave the Southern District - defending the kind of folks they went after as assistant U.S. attorneys.