US: Government savings plan results in closed DOJ antitrust offices, shut-out lawyers

A more than $100 million cost-savings plan, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in 2011, was supposed to consolidate DOJ antitrust staff into fewer offices and mean more efficiency in larger antitrust investigations. The result today, however, is antitrust lawyers out of the division altogether, many having even left the government. The cost-savings plan shut four of seven regional antitrust offices down, though AG Holder reassured that staff could and should relocate to the offices that stayed open. The media in Philadelphia, however, where one office was shut down, have found 14 of the 15 antitrust lawyers to be out of the division, 10 of which have left the government – Antonia Hill is the only remaining lawyer from Philadelphia, now working in New York. Former lawyers of the Philadelphia office – which opened in 1948 and was responsible for bringing companies like General Electric, Westinghouse, and GE Capital to justice – have generally agreed the decision to close the office was a governmental mistake, and one that resulted in a loss of talent for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division.

 

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