Trump Brings In Fewer Lawyers Than Past Presidents

In a break with previous administrations, President Donald Trump has shown a preference for business and military leaders instead of lawyers, who were long a dominant force in the workings of the White House. Among Trump’s 16 cabinet positions, only Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have law degrees, the Wall Street Journal reports. Alexander Acosta, whose nomination to be chief of the Labor Department is pending before the Senate, would be a third. Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, has a law degree as well. In the four previous administrations, lawyers accounted for about 40 to 70 percent of cabinet secretaries. The shift is the reversal of “a trend plaguing our government and society at large: the overrepresentation of lawyers in positions of power and leadership,” Michael Ginsberg, a national security lawyer, wrote in the Federalist, a right-leaning online magazine. More than half of the 44 previous presidents were attorneys, according to presidential historian Gil Troy.