The FTC train wreck continues

Seeing a pile of resumes already, several leaders of law firm antitrust practices are predicting many more government attorneys heading for private practice in the coming months as a new-look Federal Trade Commission forms under the leadership of chairperson Lina Khan.

“I’m getting a lot more resumes across my desk from the FTC,” said the co-chair of one antitrust practice in an Am Law 100 firm who declined to be named so that he could discuss an agency that he frequently interacts with. “There’s a lot more people coming out, and they’re going to get snapped up fast.”

While some staff turnover in the wake of an administration change is routine, law firm leaders said the number of agency lawyers seeking out career options outside the FTC appears to be high now and they are anticipating more later in the year. They attribute that, at least in part, to agency lawyers who have different views compared with Khan’s ideas of what constitutes antitrust behavior and how to bring cases…

“I think there’s a real disquiet there now—even in what I would say is a pretty liberal agency,” the antitrust co-chair said. “Eyebrows are up over some of the most recent moves, which to some career attorneys at the agency might see as a little heavy-handed. I won’t be surprised if more folks decide maybe now’s the time to test the [private practice] market.”

Those are the (largely Democratic) lawyers — just imagine how the economists must feel!  Here is the full article, with further detail, brutal throughout.  It is at least comforting to see that if you try to destroy America’s greatest companies, there is some pushback in the system.