An Educational Resource on the Office of State Attorney General
Going beyond the headlines to examine the often overlooked issues and cases that highlight the wide-ranging impact and role of state attorneys general.
On the long-running nightly PBS interview program Charlie Rose, a conversation about the process of building consensus among state attorneys general in the fight against tobacco companies. Full transcript available.
“In the ongoing tobacco wars, Tierney, these days a consultant hired by state attorneys general, is part strategist, traffic cop, lawyer and spin doctor. His 10 years of experience as attorney general in Maine during the 1980s and his knack for a sound bite have gotten him quoted more often in the national press than many incumbent AGs. He’s a new breed of activist and outsider who, with a little help from digital technology, can influence Washington policy debates from far beyond the Beltway — and become something of an insider in the process.”
See: The Washington Post, Nov 17, 1998 [or download PDF]
“Control Central for the 35 attorneys general and 200 private lawyers pressing the vast legal assault on Big Tobacco is, incredibly, the perfect rural stillness of a weathered old farmhouse near tiny Lisbon Falls, Maine.
Up the stairs, in a small bedroom that affords a view of his neighbor’s pasture and occasionally yields up the wafting fragrance of his own ancient apple trees, James E. Tierney is a one-man information clearinghouse in the wave of lawsuits that is expected to redefine the role of cigarettes in U.S. commerce and society.
This rangy, 50-year-old man wearing blue jeans, a green plaid shirt and dusty old hiking shoes - a regular Mainer, you might say - is the spin doctor, coordinator and a key strategist for the attorneys general who are suing to make tobacco companies repay Medicaid money spent to treat smoking-related diseases.”
See: Hunt Helm, The Courier-Journal, June 11, 1997 (PDF).
“As the list of suing states grew, management of the complex relationships among the myriad attorneys general became nightmarish. Even with nearly constant communication via conference calls, lines of stress were increasingly obvious as the far-flung attorneys general staked out their positions. Minnesota Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey III and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, for example, have taken an increasingly hard-line position against making deals with the industry as pressure for a settlement has grown.
’When you’re in a war,’ Moore said, ‘not only do you have to keep your enemy off balance, you’ve got to keep your own team together.’
As the tensions increased, the attorneys general turned to a colleague, James Tierney, to help provide a kind of glue to keep the unwieldy machine together. Tierney, a rangy former Maine attorney general turned business consultant, offers a combination of management skills and legal prowess to help his colleagues run their offices and lawsuits. Other attorneys general call him ‘America’s 51st attorney general.’
Working out of an upstairs bedroom in his old yellow farmhouse in the tiny town of Lisbon Falls, Maine, Tierney spends hours following up each of the strategic conference calls by helping each office sort out what one attorney general might have meant by a curt comment or what peculiarity of another state’s law makes its litigation position more difficult.”
See: John Schwartz, "In Tobacco Suits, States Find Strength in Numbers," Washington Post, May 18, 1997.
“With his telephone, fax machine, computer and an unyielding drive to challenge one of the nation’s most entrenched industries, James Tierney hacks away at the tobacco companies’ long-held claim that cigarette smoking is not addictive.
From his home in Lisbon Falls, Maine, the former Maine attorney general acts as a top consultant to 50 state attorneys general, particularly the 22 who have filed suit against the tobacco industry. Last week Tierney saw the first major dividend of his tobacco battle during a meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General in Washington.”
Paul Kane, "Tierney smokes out tobacco lobby,"" States News Service, Bangor Daily News, March 31, 1997.
StateAG.org offers in-depth analysis of the role of state attorneys general in the American legal system. It was founded by James E. Tierney, former Attorney General of Maine and a Lecturer at Harvard Law School where he also directs the Harvard Attorney General clinic. For thirteen years he was Director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School.
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