Hiring a former public official can add useful institutional knowledge to a government affairs team, but the first assignment should not be decided from a résumé or a job title. Post-employment restrictions can attach to specific matters, former agencies, communications, appearances, lobbying or advocacy activity, and they vary by jurisdiction, seniority and the work the person performed while in public service. The professional problem is therefore not simply whether a former official may work in government affairs. It is whether the team has collected enough facts to determine what work that person may perform, for whom, before which institutions and during what period.
A sound intake process separates employment from representational activity. In the United States, 18 U.S.C. § 207 is a primary federal post-employment statute and does not generally prohibit a former federal employee from accepting private employment. Instead, it restricts defined communications and appearances, and some restrictions depend on the particular matters the former employee worked on or the level of the former position. In the European Union, Article 16 of the Staff Regulations requires certain former officials to notify their institution about occupational activities during the two years after leaving service, with additional restrictions for former senior officials. Teams should collect the facts required for counsel/compliance to determine applicability before assigning work.
Start with the former role, not the new title
A new title such as Senior Adviser, Partner, Policy Director or Government Affairs Consultant says little about the restrictions that may follow a person from public service. The intake record should begin with the former public role: employing institution, position, grade or seniority where relevant, dates of service, units supervised, portfolio, decision authority and the matters on which the person worked.
This matters because post-employment rules frequently attach to the work performed in government rather than to the work the person hopes to perform later. Under 18 U.S.C. § 207, for example, different provisions address particular matters in which a former employee participated personally and substantially, matters under official responsibility, and certain communications or appearances by former senior or very senior personnel. An internal form should therefore capture the facts, not attempt to compress the analysis into a single question such as 'Are you subject to a cooling-off period?'
Build a prior-matters inventory
Before the former official is staffed on a client or policy matter, create a structured inventory of significant government work from the relevant look-back period. The purpose is not to demand every calendar entry from public service. It is to identify matters that could overlap with proposed private-sector assignments and to make potential switching-sides issues visible before contacts occur.
- Agency, institution, office and sub-unit where the person served.
- Dates of service and dates of departure.
- Specific proceedings, contracts, grants, investigations, applications, regulatory matters or other identifiable matters involving particular parties.
- Policy files, legislative initiatives or regulatory projects for which the person had responsibility.
- Matters in which the person participated personally and substantially.
- Matters handled by staff under the person's official responsibility where relevant.
- Non-public information or confidential materials the person may still be obligated to protect.
- Ethics advice, recusal memoranda, exit letters or post-employment guidance already provided by the former institution.
Separate three questions that are often wrongly combined
Government affairs teams should analyze at least three different questions separately. First, may the person accept the employment or advisory role? Second, may the person work internally on a particular matter? Third, may the person communicate with or appear before a government institution on behalf of the employer, client or another party? The answer may differ for each question.
U.S. Office of Government Ethics materials emphasize that federal post-employment restrictions are directed at specified representational communications and appearances rather than a general ban on private employment. That distinction is operationally important. A person may be able to perform research, internal strategy, management or technical work while being restricted from certain external contacts. The exact boundary depends on the statute, regulations, role and facts, so the staffing decision should be documented rather than inferred.
Create a contact map before assigning external engagement
The next control is a contact map. List the institutions, agencies, offices and officials the new hire may be expected to contact. Then compare that list with the person's former government position and any applicable cooling-off or representational restrictions. This is more reliable than asking the individual to remember restrictions during a fast-moving client engagement.
- Identify every government body the assignment may involve.
- Identify whether the former official served in or supervised work involving that body.
- Identify the type of proposed contact: email, meeting, call, testimony, filing, appearance, introduction or background support.
- Identify who the former official would represent in the contact.
- Identify the matter or policy file connected with the contact.
- Check whether a restriction turns on the former agency, a particular matter, seniority, timing or intent to influence.
- Record the compliance conclusion and any conditions before the first contact occurs.
EU staff rules require a different intake path
The European Union uses a different framework. Article 16 of the Staff Regulations provides that officials intending to engage in an occupational activity within two years after leaving service must inform their institution. If the proposed activity relates to work performed during the last three years of service and could conflict with the institution's legitimate interests, the appointing authority may prohibit the activity or approve it subject to conditions.
For former senior officials, Article 16 also provides that the appointing authority shall in principle prohibit, during the twelve months after leaving service, lobbying or advocacy vis-à-vis staff of the former institution for the person's business, clients or employers on matters for which the person was responsible during the last three years in service. A government affairs employer should therefore request the former official's notification, decision or conditions where applicable and should not assume that a generic employment approval authorizes every lobbying assignment.
Treat restrictions as matter-level controls, not only HR paperwork
The strongest control is to connect onboarding with matter management. HR can collect the person's former roles and ethics documentation, but government affairs leadership needs a usable restriction profile that can be checked whenever new client work is assigned. A static file stored only in personnel records will not prevent a restricted person from being added to a meeting invite six months later.
- Former institutions and organizational components subject to contact restrictions.
- Specific matters that require exclusion or legal review.
- Expiration dates for time-limited restrictions.
- Permanent or continuing restrictions that do not expire with a cooling-off period.
- Permitted internal activities, if determined by counsel or compliance.
- Prohibited or conditioned external communications and appearances.
- Escalation owner for new assignments that overlap with prior public service.
- Source documents supporting each restriction or clearance.
Do not rely on the phrase 'cooling-off period'
The phrase is useful shorthand but a weak compliance control. A cooling-off rule may apply only to certain former officials, only to contacts with a former agency or institution, only for a defined period, or only to specific kinds of communication. Other restrictions may be tied to particular matters and can last longer. Some obligations concerning confidential information may continue independently of lobbying restrictions.
A government affairs team should therefore avoid a single binary field labeled 'cooling-off complete.' The better record identifies each restriction separately, its source, scope, start and end date if time-limited, covered institutions, covered matters, and the type of conduct restricted.
Add a client-and-matter clearance before staffing
When a former official is proposed for a new client engagement, the team should run a short conflict and post-employment clearance. The question is not whether the client operates in the same industry as the former official's portfolio. The more useful questions are whether the assignment concerns a specific matter the person handled, whether the person's former institution is a target of the engagement, whether the person would communicate with government on another party's behalf, and whether a time-limited or permanent rule is implicated.
This clearance should occur before the person's name appears on a meeting request, lobbying filing, briefing delegation or client-facing engagement team. If the facts are uncertain, the matter should be escalated rather than informally narrowed by changing the label on the activity.
Protect confidential and non-public information
Revolving-door controls are not limited to contact bans. OECD guidance treats the movement between public and private roles as a conflict-of-interest risk because former officials may possess information, relationships or other advantages gained through public service. A professional intake should therefore address continuing confidentiality obligations and prohibit the use of non-public government information for client strategy, competitive positioning or advocacy.
Teams should distinguish general expertise, which may be legitimately valuable, from protected information acquired through public duties. The former official should be given a clear escalation route when a client request approaches that boundary.
Use a revolving-door intake checklist
- Collect the complete public-service role history relevant to the proposed work.
- Obtain existing ethics opinions, exit guidance, recusals and post-employment conditions.
- Build a prior-matters inventory with dates and level of involvement.
- Map former institutions and officials against expected government affairs contacts.
- Separate employment permission, internal work and external representation questions.
- Record each restriction individually rather than using a single cooling-off flag.
- Create matter-level staffing controls and calendar reminders for time-limited restrictions.
- Require compliance review before adding the former official to new external-facing work.
- Document the basis for every clearance, limitation or exclusion.
- Re-review when the assignment, client, jurisdiction or target institution changes.
Maintain the professional boundary
Government affairs professionals should not make their own legal conclusion that a former official is 'clear' merely because a cooling-off period appears to have ended. Federal, EU, national, institutional, procurement, professional-conduct or contractual restrictions can overlap. Teams should collect the facts required for counsel/compliance to determine applicability and convert that determination into practical staffing controls.
Review the IGAPA Global Code of Conduct
From hiring decision to professional standard
Movement between public service and the private sector can transfer valuable expertise. The professional risk arises when prior responsibility, confidential information and government contacts are treated as assets to exploit rather than obligations to manage. A mature government affairs practice makes the restriction analysis visible before work begins and keeps it connected to real client assignments.
That is the standard an employer, client or accreditation reviewer should be able to see: a documented method for identifying prior matters, mapping contacts, preserving confidentiality, escalating uncertain assignments and respecting post-employment restrictions without overstating or simplifying the law.
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Sources
U.S. House Office of the Law Revision Counsel: 18 U.S.C. § 207 - Restrictions on former officers, employees, and elected officials - https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?edition=2022&req=granuleid%3AUSC-2022-title18
U.S. Office of Government Ethics: Criminal Conflicts of Interest - Restrictions on Former Employees - https://www2.oge.gov/web/oge.nsf/0/7646D1C6ECAE9863852585B6005A1A20/$FILE/Criminal%20Conflicts%20of%20Interest%20508.pdf
European Union: Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union - Article 16 - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:01962R0031-20260101
OECD: Recommendation of the Council on Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying and Influence - https://legalinstruments.oecd.org/en/instruments/OECD-LEGAL-0379
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