Deputy General Counsel Job Description

A Deputy General Counsel runs the day-to-day legal operation of a government body one rung below the General Counsel. Where the General Counsel spends time with the agency head, the board or the legislature, the deputy keeps the office moving: assigning matters, reviewing drafts before they leave the building, deciding what can be settled at staff level and what needs to go up. When the General Counsel is out or the post is empty, the deputy signs as the office's chief lawyer.

HHS spells this out in its delegation notice. The Office of the General Counsel at the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a statement of organization published in the Federal Register on Sept. 29, 2026, consists of the General Counsel, a principal deputy general counsel, and such other deputy general counsel as the Secretary appoints. The same notice sets OGC policy that, when feasible, a career deputy general counsel serves as the rating official for career associate general counsels, chief counsels and other senior career staff. In a department that size, the deputy is a manager of managers.

Smaller public bodies use the title differently. The City of Portland's Office of the Auditor has a Deputy General Counsel class that works under the general direction of the General Counsel and contributes to protecting the independence of the office, with duties that include drafting and reviewing code, administrative rules, contracts and interagency agreements. At the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, a California public agency, the deputy series covers public contracting, environmental compliance, water law, public records, ethics and employment questions, helps answer Public Records Act requests, and helps train staff on the Brown Act, California's open meetings law.

The OOH describes government counsels as lawyers who help write regulations, interpret laws and set up enforcement procedures, and who may argue cases. A deputy does all of that, and adds supervision. A typical week might include rewriting a regulatory preamble so it holds up against the statute, approving a settlement in an employment case, telling a program office it cannot spend grant money the way it planned, and preparing the General Counsel for a hearing before a legislative committee.

What sets the government version apart from a corporate deputy general counsel is the client. The deputy answers to an agency whose powers come from statute, and to officials who may want outcomes the statute does not allow. Records laws, open meetings rules and ethics codes mean the office works under public scrutiny. The job rewards lawyers who can say no in writing, early, and then help leadership find a lawful route to the goal.

Every deputy general counsel position starts with a law license. The OOH notes that lawyers typically need a law degree and a state license, which usually requires passing a bar examination, and that becoming a lawyer usually takes 7 years of full-time study after high school: 4 years of undergraduate study and 3 years of law school. Public employers write the license into the job: Portland's Auditor requires admission to the Oregon State Bar, and the Inland Empire Utilities Agency requires active membership in good standing in the State Bar of California.

Credentials worth knowing:

• J.D. from an accredited law school, which Portland's class spec requires.
• Bar admission in the state where the agency sits, granted through that state's bar admission agency.
• Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination (MPRE), a separate legal ethics exam developed by the National Conference of Bar Examiners, which says it is required for admission in all but two U.S. jurisdictions (Wisconsin and Puerto Rico).

On paper, the minimum experience can look modest. Portland's spec asks for a J.D. plus three years of increasingly responsible experience in administrative, civil or criminal law, and lists experience working for a public agency as preferred. At the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, Deputy General Counsel I is the entry level of a three-step series, and its incumbents typically have at least 3 years of directly related legal experience.

Those are floors. As a rough guide, plan on something like 8 to 15 years of practice, including time as a line attorney in government, before competing for a deputy post at a state agency or a large city office. Useful backgrounds:

• Administrative law. Rulemaking, adjudication, and the agency's enabling statute.
• Government litigation. Experience with an attorney general's office, a city attorney's office or a U.S. Attorney's office gives a feel for what will survive review.
• Public contracting and grants. Procurement codes, federal grant conditions and appropriations limits generate a steady flow of questions.
• Employment and labor law. Civil service rules, collective bargaining agreements and discipline cases land on the deputy's desk.
• Records, ethics and open meetings. These set government counsel apart from private counsel, and mistakes here can become headlines.

Management experience matters as much as legal depth. A deputy is judged on whether the office meets deadlines, keeps its lawyers and gives consistent advice across divisions. Candidates who have run a unit, trained new attorneys, built a brief bank or a contract template library, or rebuilt an intake process can show that directly.

BLS projects employment of lawyers as a whole to grow 5 percent from 2025 to 2035, which it calls faster than the average for all occupations, with about 28,700 openings a year on average. That projection covers every lawyer, not government deputies in particular, and BLS publishes no figure for the deputy title. Senior posts open when a General Counsel retires, leaves with an administration, or is promoted, so hiring is lumpy and local.

The legal ground under agency work has shifted. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, decided June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court held that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and that courts may not defer to an agency interpretation simply because a statute is ambiguous: Chevron is overruled. For agency counsel, the agency's reading of its own statute now has to persuade a court without deference.

Executive Order 14215, signed Feb. 18, 2025, says no executive branch employee acting in an official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President's or the Attorney General's opinion on a matter of law. The order says previous administrations allowed so-called independent regulatory agencies to operate with minimal presidential supervision. HHS wrote the order into its September 2026 delegation notice: OGC advice, to the maximum extent permitted under EO 14215, is binding on the department unless the Secretary overturns it, and OGC is the sole officially designated source of legal advice to the department's divisions, except the inspector general.

Federal personnel rules changed in 2026 as well. OPM issued its final rule on Schedule Policy/Career, amending parts of Title 5 of the Code of Federal Regulations, on Feb. 5, 2026, and the President signed an executive order implementing it in the excepted service on June 3, 2026. OPM's briefing for leaders describes employees in those positions as at-will, tells leaders not to include Merit Systems Protection Board appeal rights in their notices, and advises them to partner with legal counsel to ensure personnel actions are legally defensible. That advice comes from agency legal offices.

AI governance is now part of the legal portfolio. OMB memo M-25-21, issued April 3, 2025, required each agency to retain or designate a Chief AI Officer within 60 days and to document minimum risk management practices for high-impact AI within 365 days. At the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the agency's compliance plan routes proposed AI uses through a pre-deployment review run by the Chief AI Officer in coordination with the Office of General Counsel, among other offices. In an office set up that way, the deputy general counsel may handle the legal side of each review: privacy, records retention, procurement terms and due process.

State and local offices sit outside these federal orders and work under their own administrative procedure acts, records laws and ethics codes. For lawyers who want management responsibility, public law and a client whose decisions reach whole communities, the deputy post is a natural step toward running a government legal office.

Dear Ms. Alvarez,

I am applying for the Deputy General Counsel position with the Riverbend Regional Transit Authority. For the past nine years I have worked in the Office of the County Attorney for Harlan County, the last four as supervising attorney for the land use and contracts section, where I manage five attorneys and two paralegals.

Much of my work looks like what your posting describes. I review every major construction and service contract the county signs, and I rewrote our standard professional services agreement after two disputes over change orders went to mediation. I advise the planning commission in open session and in closed session, and I have defended its decisions at the trial and appellate levels. When our county administrator wanted to move quickly on a property acquisition, I laid out in a two-page memo which steps the statute required and which were optional, and the acquisition closed without a challenge.

I also run the section. I assign incoming matters, review drafts before they go out, and hold a weekly docket meeting so nothing reaches a deadline unnoticed. Two attorneys I trained now handle their own appeals. Last year I led a working group that wrote our office's first policy on generative AI tools, which requires attorneys to verify every citation and keep confidential records out of public tools.

Your authority is entering a period of federal grant work and a major fare system procurement. I would bring a working knowledge of public contracting, open meetings practice and records law, plus the habit of giving leadership a clear answer early.

I am admitted in this state and would welcome the chance to talk with you and the General Counsel.

Sincerely, Jordan Ellis