Texas is home to one of the largest, most active law firms in the nation, with more than 4,000 employees in 38 divisions and 117 offices across the state. Its 750 attorneys handle more than 30,000 cases each year, many of them among the most complicated and high-profile legal issues facing the state.
This isn’t a new patent practice. It’s not a real estate practice. It’s not even an oil and gas practice.
It’s the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
Then-Attorney General Greg Abbott once joked that his job was to “go to work, sue the Obama Administration and go home.” And while protecting the state from federal overreach is a major component of the job, the work of the Texas Attorney General’s Office is critical to the lives of countless Texas families, to state agencies and to our communities.
Officially, the Attorney General’s Office is tasked with defending the state, state agencies and laws passed by the Legislature; administering the state’s child support program; pursuing certain types of criminal prosecutions; protecting taxpayer dollars from waste, fraud and abuse; defending our state from federal intrusions; and protecting the liberties of all Texans.
From issues like election security to mask mandates, the attorney general is responsible for representing the state’s—and Texans’—interests in court.
The office’s duties go further still, handling cybercrime cases—including child pornography and identity theft—prosecuting election fraud, administering programs for crime victims, prosecuting price gauging during natural disasters and ensuring sex offenders are properly registered. Perhaps the function that touches the most Texans is the office’s child support enforcement role, which collects billions of dollars each year on behalf of Texas children. These payments can literally be the difference between going hungry and having food on the table for many kids across the state.
Every four years, Texas hires a lawyer to lead this agency—the attorney general. The next election for attorney general will be in 2022.
A competent attorney general will be a skilled litigator who values the rule of law and protecting the Constitution. For this reason, some of the most successful attorneys general in our state’s history have been former judges, including Abbott and Sen. John Cornyn.
A respected attorney general will help draw the best legal talent in Texas to public service at the agency, building a bench of experienced attorneys to handle complex litigation on behalf of the state. This includes a solicitor general, who handles the state’s appellate litigation and ensures consistency in its legal positions, and assistant attorneys general to oversee the work of the various divisions in the office.
With so much on the line at this critical agency, it’s more important now than ever that we have an attorney general with strong legal experience, unparalleled judgment, unquestioned integrity and the ability to attract and retain world-class lawyers to run its various divisions. Unfortunately, the current Attorney General’s Office has been severely weakened by the departure of many of its most capable lawyers, which must be rectified if the agency is to run effectively.