A prosecutor is a licensed attorney who represents the government in criminal cases, pursuing the charges the government brings against a person or organization accused of violating the law.
Prosecutors work at the county, state and federal level, screening charges, negotiating pleas and trying cases in court.
This guide covers the day-to-day work, who employs prosecutors, the credentials the role requires and what it pays.
What does a prosecutor do day to day?
A prosecutor is the government's lawyer in a criminal case.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts the role plainly: prosecutors "typically pursue the government’s charges against an individual or organization accused of violating the law."
Charging is where the job starts.
Prosecutors review the reports and evidence law enforcement sends them and decide which charges the government will bring — or whether to bring any at all.
That screening responsibility is one of the defining features of the role, because it shapes what actually enters the criminal courts.
Once charges are filed, much of the calendar goes to the pre-trial phase: appearing at hearings, negotiating plea agreements with defense counsel and preparing cases for trial.
Case review, negotiation and court appearances fill far more of a prosecutor's week than the trials the public sees.
When a case does go to trial, the prosecutor presents the government's evidence, examines witnesses and argues the case to the judge or jury.
Trial work is the most visible part of the job, and it sits on top of months of preparation.
Prosecutors also work with the people affected by the case.
Keeping victims and witnesses informed, and preparing them for hearings and trial, is a regular part of the role — victims are often central to the government's case, and contact with them is work prosecutors and their staff do directly.
Where do prosecutors work and who employs them?
Prosecutors are government lawyers at one of three levels: county, state or federal.
The BLS lists prosecutor among the titles attorneys hold in federal, state and local governments, alongside public defender and general counsel.
The employer mix shows how distinct that is from the rest of the profession.
Lawyers held about 863,700 jobs in 2025, and per the BLS the largest employer group was legal services (52%), followed by self-employed lawyers (11%).
Local government employed 8% of lawyers, state government 7% and the federal government 5% — and prosecutorial offices sit inside those government rows.
Titles track the level of government.
Staff attorneys in a county prosecutor's office are commonly assistant district attorneys, working under the office's elected or appointed head; in some places that head carries a different title, such as state's attorney, but the function is the same.
In the federal system, prosecutors serve as assistant United States attorneys.
At the federal level, prosecution runs through the Department of Justice.
The ABA's 2024 Profile of the Legal Profession reported that the Justice Department employs the most general attorneys — nearly 13,000 of them.
What skills and credentials does a prosecutor need?
The credentials are the same as for any attorney.
The BLS describes lawyers as typically needing a law degree and a state license, which usually requires passing a bar examination.
Admission rules and the body that administers them are set state by state.
Beyond the license, the day job rewards a specific skill set: courtroom advocacy, comfort with evidence and criminal procedure, clear writing under deadline, and disciplined case management across many concurrent matters.
Discretion matters too — charging and plea decisions are judgment calls made in public view, with consequences for defendants, victims and the community.
Confirm licensing rules with the admitting authority
What does a typical caseload or workload look like?
There is no single typical caseload.
Workload depends on the office, the court and the case mix: a misdemeanor docket moves differently from a serious-felony unit, and a trial week looks nothing like a plea-and-hearings week.
Offices also split work by unit, so two lawyers in the same building can carry very different loads.
The BLS's general findings about lawyers' hours apply here: most lawyers work full time, and some work more than 40 hours a week.
In prosecution, court deadlines tend to set the rhythm — the work is measured in cases and court dates rather than hours billed to clients.
Our research did not verify caseload statistics for prosecutor offices specifically; the Bureau of Justice Statistics is the primary source for prosecutor and public defender office counts and structures, and readers who need those numbers should go there.
For a specific office, its own hiring announcements and website are the better guide to actual workload.
How does the role compare with nearby attorney roles?
The closest comparison is the public defender.
The BLS draws the line directly: prosecutors pursue the government's charges, while public defense attorneys "represent criminal defendants who cannot afford to hire a private attorney."
The two roles share courtrooms, evidence and criminal procedure — but they sit on opposite sides of the same cases.
Private criminal-defense lawyers handle the same defense-side work for clients who retain them directly rather than by appointment.
General counsel, the third of the BLS's government-lawyer titles, works on the advisory side: representing an agency's legal interests rather than trying adversarial cases.
Judges sit above the adversarial process rather than inside it, ruling on the cases prosecutors and defense lawyers argue.
One way to see that side of the courtroom early is a judicial clerkship — the BLS notes clerkships are typically 1- or 2-year terms that some graduates take before practicing.
How do you become a prosecutor?
The path runs through law school and licensure: the BLS describes lawyers as typically needing a law degree and a state license, which usually requires passing a bar examination.
From there, hiring happens office by office — county, state and federal prosecutor offices each recruit and post their own openings.
Law school is where the pipeline usually starts.
The BLS notes that a successful summer job or internship during law school may result in an employment offer after graduation.
Public-service placements are a measurable part of the entry market: NALP measured government at 12.0% of employed Class of 2025 graduates' jobs, within 31.0% of jobs in public service (government, judicial clerkships and public interest) overall.
Those public-sector roles have been growing in importance.
NALP credits growth in public defender and prosecutor roles as a key driver of the rise in bar-required jobs since their 64.4% low for the Classes of 2012–2013.
How much do prosecutors make?
Pay data for prosecutors specifically is thin: BLS wage figures describe the lawyers occupation (SOC 23-1011) by industry, not by practice area.
In May 2025, the BLS median annual wage for lawyers was $131,390 in local government, $115,330 in state government and $178,380 in federal government — the industry rows where county, state and federal prosecutor offices sit.
At the entry point, NALP's Class of 2025 data put the median starting salary for new graduates entering government at $81,000 — a figure for government as a whole, not prosecution alone.
These are lawyer-wide medians, not prosecutor salaries
Where to find prosecutor jobs
Prosecutor openings are posted by the offices doing the hiring: county district attorney's offices, state prosecuting authorities and federal Department of Justice components each run their own recruitment.
The broader market is steady — the BLS projects lawyer employment to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations, with about 28,700 openings a year on average, many from replacing workers who retire or change occupations.
On LawFirmHires you can browse prosecutor jobs in one place, with openings as employers post them.
This page is career information, not legal advice. Confirm admission requirements with the admitting authority in your state, and pay figures with the sources named above.