Lawyers who worked in the office of legal policy, which carries out significant policy initiatives, and in the federal programs branch, which defends the administration in court, were also part of the team.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Typically, the distinguished service honor, the department’s second highest, is given to employees who worked on significant prosecutions, rather than on judicial nomination processes. In addition to the award to the Kavanaugh nomination team, 10 other distinguished service honors will be presented this year. Those recipients include the prosecutors who worked to end a bid-rigging conspiracy against the Defense Department.

In July 2018, Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general, asked federal prosecutors to help review the many government documents involved in Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination process.

After many years of public service — including work for the independent counsel’s investigation of President Bill Clinton and on the 2000 Florida recount — Justice Kavanaugh had generated a lengthy paper trail that lawyers needed to comb through.

Mr. Rosenstein estimated that he would need about 100 lawyers working around the clock to review all of the documents. His broad request for volunteers from United States attorneys offices was seen by some former officials as a reflection of the huge amount of work required by Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination; others saw it as an unusual insertion of politics into federal law enforcement.