The Solicitor’s Office of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), which provides legal services to the Secretary of Labor and the program agencies of DOL, including OSHA, the Wage and Hour Division, and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), is undergoing a reorganization.   

The attorneys in the Solicitor’s Office represent the agency in litigation, at both the trial and appellate levels, and assist the program agencies in developing regulations and standards. The Solicitor’s Office has a presence in both the Headquarters Office in Washington, DC and in regional offices around the country.  There are currently eight regional offices of the Solicitor’s Office, located in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Kansas City, and San Francisco.  With the recent retirement of the Regional Solicitor for Kansas City, the Solicitor’s Office is about to undergo a reorganization.  The Kansas City Office will soon cease to be a Regional Office and will, instead, be a sub-regional office, reporting to the Chicago Regional Office.  In addition, the Denver sub-regional office, which had previously been under the jurisdiction of the Kansas City Regional Office, will, instead, report to the Dallas Regional Office.

Because the head of each Regional Office is a member of the Senior Executive Service, while the sub-regional offices are headed by attorneys at the GS-15 level, the reduction in the number of Regional Offices will result in a savings to the Solicitor’s Office.  It is anticipated that President Obama’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2013 will include a requirement that all federal agencies reduce the number of regional offices.