Legal and Regulatory Roles

Legal and regulatory roles enforce the rules already on the books and write new ones at the agency level. They are often invisible from the outside but are where most of the real-world effect of the interventions in this wiki actually happens. The 2021–2024 Khan-era FTC, the OECD CTPA secretariat, and the EU’s DG COMP and DG TAXUD are recent examples of agencies whose staffing decisions translated directly into outcomes.

These roles are the natural fit for lawyers (especially antitrust, tax, financial regulation, and securities backgrounds), but they are also where economics and accounting credentials are most valued at the federal level. The U.S. FTC, DOJ Antitrust Division, IRS Office of Chief Counsel, and SEC all employ substantial numbers of economists and accountants alongside lawyers. International institutions (OECD CTPA, IMF Fiscal Affairs, EU DG TAXUD) hire similarly.

The hiring rhythm is different from advocacy and research: regulatory agencies hire largely from law schools (for attorneys) and from MA/PhD economics programs (for analysts), with mid-career transfers more common at the IGO level than at U.S. agencies. The lateral move from private-sector legal or accounting practice into government enforcement is well-established and benefits from operational understanding of how the regulated systems actually work.

Role inventory

Role	Typical employers	Credentials
Antitrust / competition attorney	FTC, DOJ Antitrust, EU DG COMP, U.K. CMA, national agencies	JD + antitrust experience
Antitrust / competition economist	Same agencies	Econ PhD
Tax attorney (government side)	IRS Chief Counsel, DOJ Tax, Treasury, EU DG TAXUD	JD/LLM tax
Tax policy economist / analyst	JCT, CBO, OTA (Treasury), OECD CTPA, IMF FAD	Econ MA/PhD; CPA is differentiating
Securities / financial-regulation attorney	SEC, CFTC, EBA, ESMA, BaFin, FCA, OSFI	JD
Inspector general / audit staff	U.S. IG offices, GAO, EU Court of Auditors, supreme audit institutions	CPA, JD, MPA
Beneficial-ownership / AML staff	FinCEN, U.K. Companies House, FATF, EU AMLA	JD, MA in finance/compliance
Labor-regulation attorney	NLRB, EU DG EMPL, U.K. CIPD, national labor inspectorates	JD + labor focus
State-level enforcement	State AGs (antitrust, consumer), state revenue departments	JD, CPA

Where attorneys, economists, and accountants fit

The three professional backgrounds enter regulatory agencies through distinct channels and do distinct work.

Attorneys are the dominant professional class at most regulatory agencies — at the FTC they substantially outnumber the PhD economists in the Bureau of Economics. The work divides into: enforcement (investigating potential violations, building cases, litigating or settling); rulemaking (drafting proposed rules, managing the notice-and-comment process, writing final rules); and policy (developing agency priorities, writing guidance, engaging with congressional oversight). The top enforcement positions in major cases are attorney-led. Entry from law school is the most common path; entry from private practice (typically after 3–8 years at a firm) is increasingly common as agencies have prioritized bringing in practitioners who understand modern corporate structures from the inside.

Economists are the second major professional class. The FTC Bureau of Economics, DOJ Antitrust Division Litigation Sections, EU DG COMP’s Chief Economist Team, and the OECD CTPA all employ PhD economists in dedicated research and analysis roles. Economists are most consequential in merger review (where economic analysis of competitive effects is central) and in rulemaking (where cost-benefit analysis is often legally required). At the FTC, the Bureau of Economics is independent of the Bureau of Competition, and FTC chief economists have published influential research from within the agency. The economics staff can block enforcement actions by providing adverse technical opinions — the internal check is real and important.

Accountants and CPAs enter regulatory agencies most naturally through: the IRS (revenue agents, special agents in criminal investigation, Office of Chief Counsel tax attorneys); the SEC and PCAOB (enforcement accountants, financial examiners); the GAO and IG offices (auditors); and state revenue departments (revenue agents and tax examiners). At the IRS, CPAs with corporate-tax-return experience are highly valued in the Large Business & International Division, which handles the most complex transfer-pricing and offshore-income cases. The OECD CTPA and IMF Fiscal Affairs Department hire CPAs and tax-administration professionals alongside economists for technical-assistance missions.

U.S. federal agency hiring rhythms

FTC hires through two main channels: law-school hiring (the Honors Attorney Program, which takes new attorneys directly out of law school or a judicial clerkship and rotates them for a year each through the Bureau of Competition and the Bureau of Consumer Protection) and lateral hiring (mid-career attorneys from DOJ, private practice, and state AG offices). The Honors Attorney Program is the most structured entry point; competition is high and grades + journal + clerkship are the typical screen. Commissioner changes affect the agency’s enforcement culture substantially — the 2021–2024 Khan leadership substantially increased merger challenges and rulemaking activity, which both increased hiring and changed the types of cases prioritized.

DOJ Antitrust Division hires similarly: Honors Program for law-school entry, laterals from private practice, and PhD economists directly into the Litigation Section economist staff. The Division has trial sections organized by industry (telecommunications, financial services, healthcare, defense) and a policy section. The political appointee layer (Assistant AG for Antitrust) changes with administrations and significantly affects enforcement priorities.

IRS has its own hiring cycle through USAJobs.gov, largely outside the law-school recruiting calendar. The Large Business & International (LB&I) Division is the most relevant for complex corporate tax work and hires revenue agents, tax attorneys, and economists through different tracks. IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) is the federal criminal tax enforcement arm; special agent positions require at least 15 semester hours of accounting (or a CPA certificate / equivalent experience), appointment by age 37, and carry full law-enforcement authority — CI special agents are the only IRS employees authorized to carry firearms and make arrests, under 26 U.S.C. § 7608.

Treasury/OTA (Office of Tax Analysis) is a smaller unit that provides the economic analysis supporting Treasury’s tax policy work. It hires primarily PhD economists and is effectively a government analogue to an academic research department. The Joint Committee on Taxation hires JD tax attorneys and economists to provide non-partisan tax-bill analysis for Congress.

SEC hires attorneys, accountants, and financial analysts. The Division of Enforcement is attorney-led; the Office of the Chief Accountant employs CPAs and is responsible for accounting standard engagement and financial fraud investigation. SEC positions are competitive; the Commission’s pay is below private-practice equivalents but above most other federal agencies under SEC’s independent compensation authority.

International agency hiring

OECD CTPA (Centre for Tax Policy and Administration): The most consequential international tax-policy institution. Staff write the BEPS Actions, the Pillar Two rules, the Common Reporting Standard, and the Model Tax Convention. Entry is primarily through the Young Professionals Programme (JPO; country-funded, 2-year placements), secondment from national tax authorities (common for senior positions), and direct recruitment at the P4/P5 level. A strong MA in public finance or tax law plus demonstrated country experience is sufficient for junior analyst positions. National tax-authority experience — working at the IRS, HMRC, or a comparable authority — is the most common background for secondees.

IMF Fiscal Affairs Department: See the Research and Policy Roles discussion of IMF hiring. FAD’s technical-assistance missions are the most distinctive entry point for practitioners: multi-year in-country assignments advising finance ministries and revenue authorities on tax-administration reform. CPA + tax-administration experience is the most differentiating credential for these roles. The IMF pays in U.S. dollars at all field postings and provides housing and family allowances that make the compensation substantially higher than the base salary suggests.

EU DG TAXUD and DG COMP: EU officials (fonctionnaires) are hired through EPSO (European Personnel Selection Office) competitive exams, which are held by category. The AD5 (entry-level) competition is the standard path for new graduates; AD7 and above is the lateral path for experienced practitioners. The process is long (roughly a year from application to reserve list) and runs through multiple-choice reasoning tests, an EU-knowledge test, a digital-skills assessment, and a written essay; recent cycles (including the 2026 AD5 competition) are conducted remotely, having dropped the in-person assessment centre that earlier competitions used. National competition authorities (NCAs) are a common pipeline for DG COMP — competition attorneys and economists who have worked at the French Autorité de la Concurrence, the German Bundeskartellamt, or the U.K. CMA often lateral into DG COMP positions or into the Brussels offices of international law firms that advise clients on Commission cases.

State-level enforcement as an entry point

U.S. state attorneys general offices are substantially under-discussed as entry points for inequality-relevant legal work. The reality:

State antitrust enforcement has become substantially more active since 2017, as the federal agencies’ enforcement activity fluctuated with administration changes. State AGs’ antitrust units litigated major cases against Google (the 2020 state-coalition antitrust case) and Facebook (the December 2020 monopolization suit led by New York AG Letitia James on behalf of 48 attorneys general), and joined the federal antitrust action against Apple, often in coordination with federal agencies. State AG antitrust positions hire JDs from state law schools and local practice, are less competitive than federal agency positions, and provide substantial courtroom and investigation experience. Entry salary is typically $60,000–$80,000; the career trajectory often leads to a lateral move to a federal agency or to private practice with state-enforcement experience.

State tax enforcement — revenue agents and tax attorneys at state revenue departments — is the most direct path for CPAs and tax attorneys who want regulatory roles without relocating to Washington. State-level corporate income tax enforcement increasingly involves the same transfer-pricing and multi-state apportionment issues that federal enforcement addresses, particularly for platform companies with complex IP structures. Several states (New York, California, Massachusetts) have well-funded revenue departments with sophisticated corporate-audit programs.

State financial regulation — bank examiners, insurance regulators, securities commissioners — is the entry path for financial-regulation careers in the absence of a federal role. State bank examinations feed into OCC and Federal Reserve examiner careers; state securities enforcement often coordinates with the SEC and CFTC on cases.

The revolving door: rules, realities, and considerations

The “revolving door” — movement between regulatory agencies and the private sector they regulate — is a genuine structural tension in legal and regulatory careers. The rules are specific and consequential.

Post-government employment restrictions (U.S.) — codified at 18 U.S.C. § 207:

• One-year cooling-off period before former senior officials can knowingly communicate with or appear before their former agency on behalf of anyone seeking official action.
• Two-year cooling-off period for very senior officials (agency heads, Executive Schedule Level II and senior White House staff) before they can communicate with or appear before any Executive Schedule official anywhere in the federal government.
• Two-year restriction on particular matters that were under the official’s responsibility during their last year of service, plus a lifetime ban on representing anyone before the government on specific matters in which the individual participated personally and substantially.
• Additional agency-specific restrictions (SEC employees have enhanced restrictions on working for firms they regulated).

These rules are enforced by the Office of Government Ethics and create genuine constraints on post-government employment at regulated firms. The effective result is that former FTC or DOJ attorneys typically move to law firms that represent clients before the agency (permissible after the cooling-off period) rather than to the companies they investigated directly (often permissible but reputationally complicated).

The career logic: Government enforcement experience is valued in private practice because it signals credibility with the agency and understanding of the investigation process. The typical FTC or DOJ career is 3–7 years of government service, followed by lateral to a large firm’s antitrust practice at significantly higher compensation. This career path is the dominant one for antitrust attorneys; the subset who stay in government long-term tend to become career staff who provide institutional continuity across administrations.

The inequality-strategy implications: for candidates who want to maximize impact on enforcement outcomes, the government career is the high-leverage path. The revolving door is real but less determinative than it appears from outside — agency economists and career staff who stay 10–20 years shape enforcement culture more than political appointees who rotate every 2–4 years.

Compensation ranges

Role / level	Approximate range (USD)	Notes
Honors Attorney (FTC, DOJ)	$75,000–$95,000	GS-11/12 entry; pay scale adjusted by locality
Mid-career federal attorney (GS-14/15)	$125,000–$175,000	DC locality pay included
IRS Revenue Agent (GS-11/12 entry)	$65,000–$85,000	Field offices vary; CPA differentiates for LB&I
SEC attorney / accountant	$85,000–$160,000	SEC’s independent pay authority > standard GS
State AG attorney	$60,000–$100,000	Large state AGs (NY, CA) at higher end
OECD analyst (P3–P4)	€75,000–€105,000 (Paris)	Plus benefits; competitive with national agencies
IMF economist (P3–P4)	$100,000–$140,000 + allowances	Tax-free; field allowances add substantially
Private practice antitrust (5–10yr)	$250,000–$500,000+	Large-firm Am Law 100; bonus-heavy

Sources: federal attorney/analyst figures follow the OPM General Schedule pay tables at the Washington-DC locality rate; SEC pay reflects the Commission’s independent compensation authority (above standard GS); private-practice ranges from Am Law associate-and-counsel market scales.

The compensation gap between government and private-practice antitrust is substantial — typically 3–5× at the senior level. This gap drives the revolving door: government experience is valuable enough that private firms pay premium for it, which creates a continuous pipeline from agencies to firms. Candidates who want to stay in government long-term typically do so on mission grounds rather than compensation grounds.