Third-year GW Law student Andrew Nettels felt relieved when he secured a job through the Department of Justice honors program ahead of graduation — until President Donald Trump’s federal hiring freeze late last month caused his offer to be revoked.

The Justice Department and other federal agencies rescinded job offers and canceled summer internship programs on Jan. 20 after Trump enacted a 90-day federal hiring freeze, a move that resulted in around 20 law students losing job offers and internships, according to law school officials. Law students said peers, practitioners and the broader national law community have come together to support impacted students by launching support groups and expanding job offerings.

Nettels, who was slated to start the program at the Justice Department in September, said when he heard the news about Trump’s hiring freeze he hoped his position fell within an exception outlined in the joint U.S. Office of Management and Budget and Office of Personnel Management memorandum. But because his start date did not fall within the parameters of the hiring freeze, the department rescinded his job offer, Nettels said.

Federal agencies revoked offers made and accepted before Jan. 20 with a start date after Feb. 8, according to the memorandum. More than 2,000 federal jobs and summer internships are either canceled or on hold, Reuters reported.

“I prepared for that interview like I’ve never prepared for any interview before in my entire life,” Nettels said.

Nettels said that after losing his job offer with the honors program — which accepted about 100 students this year — he wanted to create a “support network” for law students and graduates who had lost job opportunities within the honors program.

He said he created a group chat for these students two weeks ago but received messages from students from other parts of government and government agencies, so he opened the chat to any student affected by the hiring freeze, including those at other schools.

Nettels said there are at least 25 GW students in the group chat, with three or four also having lost job offers with the Justice Department’s honors program. There are more than 70 students from across the country in the chat, and the group circulates a document with shared resources and job opportunities, he said.

He said professionals in the private sector have reached out to him since the hiring freeze about potential job opportunities, which he then shares with the group chat. He said he plans to continue supporting affected students until everyone in the chat has a job.

“We’ve been receiving a lot of support from practitioners that are opening up positions that otherwise would not have been available, so it’s been really good to see that and moreover just to have people that are in a similar situation to talk about this,” Nettels said.

He said losing his job offer was a “detour” and that he does not have any other opportunities lined up, but he remains hopeful for the future of the job market once the 90-day hiring freeze ends. His ultimate goal is becoming a civil servant within the U.S. government and working for the Justice Department, Nettels said.

But he said it is arguably more difficult to secure opportunities after the hiring freeze for first-and second-year law students who do not have any legal experience on their resumes because it’s harder to find an internship while in law school than a job postgraduation.

“My heart bleeds for these students right now, they’ve been deprived of these opportunities,” Nettels said. “It’s really a focus of mine and of others in the group to try and find these, these students, these nongraduating students, these 1Ls and 2Ls internship opportunities.”

Nettels said the law school’s Career Development Office has worked “nonstop” to provide affected students with job opportunities, like at private firms. He said the office reached out to the law school alumni network for job openings and offered career counseling services for students since the freeze. 

The law school’s Government Procurement Law Program took to LinkedIn, Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday to ask organizations actively hiring government procurement law students and alumni to join its career listserv. 

“The law school and the professors, we’ve really rallied together in this tough time, and they’re trying to help us as best they can,” Nettels said.

GW Law Associate Dean for Professional Development and Career Strategy Suzanne Hard said the school is advising affected students individually and building customized job searches for each student.

She said the law school has planned programs since the hiring freeze with recruiters at companies who are actively hiring, created a faculty “care group” and are hosting informational webinars to communicate resources to students.

“We have an outstanding bench of career counselors with combined decades of legal experience, in every type of practice,” Hard said in an email. “We have been working to identify opportunities in state courts and state agencies, along with strengthening our ties in the private sector.”

Hard said about 20 law school students reported losing summer internships or postgraduate job offers at federal agencies. She said students lost opportunities at agencies, like the Internal Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Hard said experiences outside of the classroom are essential to creating the “best lawyers” and that the loss of summer internship opportunities presents a “challenge” to building a complete legal resume.

“Ensuring that we have a population of practitioners with legal training is critical to sustaining democracy, and also to the many institutions that enable the function of our large and complex society,” Hard said. “Everything from the justice system to banks to technology companies to schools, and more.”

Hard said there are “many other ways” for students to receive legal work experience in the private and public sectors and encouraged students to continue to apply for jobs.

“Our students are a resilient and resourceful group, and they are quickly pivoting to other pathways to launch their legal careers,” Hard said.