Definition
The Attorney General is the chief law officer of a government — federal or state — responsible for representing the government in legal proceedings, advising the executive branch on questions of law, and overseeing the enforcement of the laws within the jurisdiction.
1. Federal (United States). The Attorney General of the United States heads the Department of Justice, is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation, and serves as the principal legal advisor to the President and the Cabinet. The office carries supervisory authority over federal prosecutorial functions, law enforcement agencies within the DOJ, and litigation in which the United States is a party.
2. State. Each of the fifty states has an Attorney General, typically elected by popular vote (though in some states appointed), who performs analogous functions at the state level: representing the state in court, issuing formal legal opinions to state agencies, and in many jurisdictions supervising consumer protection and antitrust enforcement.
3. English law (historical). The Attorney General of England was the principal legal officer of the Crown, appointed by letters patent and drawn from the Queen's Counsel. The office held exclusive authority to exhibit criminal informations on behalf of the Crown and to file bills in the Exchequer in matters touching royal revenue.
Common Confusion
Attorney General is frequently confused with two related but distinct offices. The Solicitor General (federal) is a subordinate officer who argues cases before the Supreme Court on behalf of the United States — a function popularly attributed to the Attorney General. The District Attorney (or U.S. Attorney at the federal level) handles day-to-day prosecutorial work within a geographic jurisdiction; the Attorney General superintends those offices rather than conducting trials personally. Researchers working with historical materials should also note that the English Solicitor General ranked below the Attorney General and assisted the latter — the hierarchy is older than the American offices that borrowed the names.
Why It Matters in Research
Jurisdictional layering is the primary research trap. A document referring to "the Attorney General" without qualification may mean the U.S. Attorney General, a specific state Attorney General, or — in pre-revolutionary materials — the English Crown officer. The functions assigned to each differ substantially, and the authority of a state Attorney General opinion, for example, has no federal-law equivalent and varies by state in terms of binding effect on agencies.
The office has also expanded significantly over time. Early American Attorneys General (beginning with Edmund Randolph in 1789) operated without a department — the DOJ was not established until 1870. Research into federal law enforcement authority or executive-branch legal opinions before 1870 must account for the fact that the Attorney General then functioned more as a solo practitioner retained by the government than as a department head.
At the state level, the power to issue formal Attorney General opinions is a distinctive research resource. These opinions interpret statutes, resolve interagency disputes, and can function as quasi-precedent within the executive branch. They are collected in separate opinion series and are not integrated into standard case reporters — researchers unfamiliar with state government document repositories often miss them entirely.
Consumer protection and parens patriae litigation — where the Attorney General sues on behalf of the state's citizens — is a growing area since the late twentieth century. Historical sources are largely silent on this function because it is a modern expansion, not a traditional one.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three dictionary sources present consistent accounts of the English office: the Attorney General was created by letters patent, prosecuted criminal matters for the Crown, and managed exchequer revenue litigation. Burrill adds the Latin form — attornatus regis or reginæ — useful for researchers encountering the term in older documents or pleadings.
All three sources note the American federal office and its cabinet-level status, though none fully captures the post-1870 departmental structure; their accounts describe the officer more than the institution. The reference in Black's (2nd Ed.) to State v. Cunningham is useful context for researchers examining state-level Attorney General authority, as that case addressed the scope of the Wisconsin AG's powers — a reminder that state AG authority was litigated well before the modern era.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the state Attorney General's role as an independent elected officer (as opposed to a gubernatorial appointee), the parens patriae doctrine as a tool of consumer or environmental enforcement, or the modern practice of multi-state Attorney General coalitions in major litigation. Researchers should treat the dictionary definitions as baseline descriptions of the office's origins, not its contemporary reach.
Jurisdictional Note
In the majority of U.S. states, the Attorney General is independently elected, which means the office may be held by a member of a different party than the governor — creating potential conflicts in state legal strategy. In a minority of states (including Alaska, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Wyoming), the Attorney General is appointed by the governor or legislature. This structural difference affects the office's independence, its litigation posture, and the degree to which AG opinions bind executive agencies.