Contract Attorney Primer: A note on security clearances and Federal government contract work

We are getting a lot of questions on security clearances so we thought we’d put out a primer.

There is an increase in the number of Federal government projects and positions coming into the DC Metro area as well as the Southeast, Southwest and Far West.  Many of these require security clearances.  Most of these are projects/positions with a U.S. government agency — either directly or through a staffing agency/e-discovery company/government contractor, or via law firms and accounting firms.

We are seeing more of these hit the Posse List as more staffing agencies and e-discovery companies bid for government projects (straight document reviews as well as other more substantive positions such as FOIA work, TARP work, DOD projects, etc.)

We have also opened the door to government contracting companies who have subscribed to our various lists and are also posting jobs for contract attorneys.

Federal contracting is popping according to the most recent GAO study.  Or to quote Joe Davidson in last week’s Washington Post “Federal contracting dollars are jumping like popcorn on the stove.”  President Obama will not take the popper off the stove because federal contracting can generate jobs quickly and everyone knows this year is all about job creation.

Many of these government contracts require legal services.  The pay range is in a very broad band …. $22 an hour to $95 an hour.  The larger, juicier (read: higher $$$ contract jobs) are those contracts offered via special set asides and/or for GSA approved vendors.  We’ll post a further primer in the coming weeks on how the entire government contracting process works. 

Now, security clearances.  Only the Federal government can issue security clearances.  Some projects require the clearance in order to apply.  Some do not.  If you don’t have one, you apply for one when you are accepted for a government project or position.  There are expedited clearances and “slo mo” clearances.  There are several levels and sub-levels of security clearances.  As examples, here are levels found in the Posse List resume database:

 – Position of Public Trust
 – Confidential
 – DOE-L
 – DOE-Q
 – DOJ-NACI
 – DOJ-Secret
 – IRS-MBI
 – NATO
 – NATO-Secret
 – Secret
 – Top Secret

Note that in certain circumstances if a contract attorney has previously had certain security clearances within the past 2 years but it expired those clearances can sometimes be quickly reinstated.

For a good overview see this link.

Obviously not all government contracting work requires a security clearance.  But we’ll get to all that in a future primer.