Assistant attorneys general are the staff lawyers of a state attorney general's office — the lawyers the office employs to carry its legal work for state agencies and officials.
State government (excluding education and hospitals) employed 7% of the country's lawyers in 2025, per the BLS, and state attorney general jobs can involve consumer protection, litigation and appellate work.
This guide covers how AG offices may divide that work, how they hire, what they pay and why the office qualifies as a PSLF employer.
Divisions and practice areas in a state AG office
A state attorney general's office is the state's own law office, and assistant attorneys general are the lawyers it hires to carry the caseload.
Each office organizes those lawyers into its own divisions, bureaus and sections, and the names and boundaries can differ from state to state — an office's careers page and organizational chart are the reliable map of the structure you would be joining.
Our research did not verify any office's division list, so read what follows as illustrative rather than a map of any one office.
An office may have litigation divisions that handle the state's civil cases — defending state agencies and officials when they are sued, and pursuing claims on the state's behalf — and consumer protection divisions that enforce the state's consumer protection laws.
It may also have appellate units that brief and argue the office's cases on appeal, and advisory seats that place counsel inside state agencies for the day-to-day legal work of government programs.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' picture of government lawyers lists prosecutor, public defender and general counsel among the titles attorneys hold in government — criminal-side and in-house titles that share the government-law market with AG offices.
For how these roles fit together across federal, state and local government, see our government attorney guide.
Solicitor general offices and appellate work
Where a state attorney general's office has a solicitor general, the title is associated with its appellate litigation: the office's significant appeals and the appellate briefs that go with them.
Our research did not verify which states use the title or how any office divides its appellate work — the function may sit with a solicitor general, in a dedicated appeals division or across practice areas.
The office's website is the reliable guide to how it organizes its appeals.
The work is briefing- and argument-heavy.
Appellate assistant attorneys general write briefs, argue cases in the appellate courts, and work alongside the trial-level divisions whose judgments are on appeal — spotting the issues worth raising and building the record the argument needs.
The skill set overlaps the one appellate lawyers build on the firm side: heavy writing, oral argument and a record-focused practice.
Our guide to appellate practice covers how that career works outside government and what its hiring market looks like.
Hiring and fellowship programs
Look for attorney positions on each office's own careers page and, where a state runs one, its central government job portal.
Our research did not verify how any state office splits its hiring between experienced lawyers and new graduates, so read each posting for the experience it asks for.
The BLS's general observation about lawyer hiring applies: successful completion of a summer job or internship during law school may result in an offer of employment after graduation.
The market context is worth knowing before you apply.
Government took 12.0% of employed NALP Class of 2025 graduates' jobs — part of the 31.0% of Class of 2025 jobs that went to public-service employers overall, alongside judicial clerkships (10.0%) and public interest (9.0%).
These are state jobs in the most literal sense, and 65.6% of employed Class of 2025 graduates worked in the same state where they attended law school — a statistic that matters for anyone targeting one specific state's AG office.
The only structured entry program our research verified is federal: the Department of Justice's Attorney General's Honors Program — a federal program despite the name — which has run since 1953 as DOJ's entry-level attorney recruitment route, and whose eligibility is limited to graduating law students and recent graduates who entered a judicial clerkship, graduate law program or qualifying legal fellowship within 9 months of graduation, and who meet the program's additional eligibility requirements.
Our DOJ Honors Program guide covers it in detail; for state offices, check each office's careers page for its own honors and internship programs, which our research did not compile state by state.
Moving on to a firm: the conflict rule follows you
Pay and PSLF
Two data series describe AG office pay, and they measure different things.
The BLS's May 2025 medians for all lawyers (SOC 23-1011) by industry put state government at $115,330 — below legal services at $157,870 and local government at $131,390 — with the federal government highest at $178,380.
Note the series' limits: it covers all lawyers in state government rather than assistant attorneys general specifically (our BLS sources carry no practice-area split for lawyers, and the industry rows for state and local government exclude education and hospitals), and its wage figures exclude the self-employed and owners and partners of unincorporated businesses.
At the entry point, NALP's Class of 2025 medians put the starting salary for new graduates entering government at $81,000 — a median measured about ten months after graduation.
That is NALP's series, not the BLS's — read the two numbers as separate lenses on the market, not rungs on one ladder.
Where the BLS medians put state government pay below legal services, the federal loan benefit runs the other way.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness forgives the remaining balance on eligible Direct Loans after the equivalent of 120 qualifying monthly payments made while working full-time for a qualifying employer.
Qualifying employers include U.S. federal, state, local and tribal government entities — which covers a state attorney general's office — while private, for-profit law firms are not qualifying employers.
PSLF's employer test turns on who employs you, not what you do.
The rule's specifics matter if you are counting on it.
Full-time means an average of at least 30 hours per week across one or more qualifying jobs.
Eligible loans are Direct Subsidized, Direct Unsubsidized, Direct PLUS and Direct Consolidation Loans.
Qualifying repayment plans include income-driven plans, the 10-year standard plan and the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP).
And you must be working full-time for a qualifying employer both when the 120th payment is made and when you apply for forgiveness.
The rules sit in the federal regulation at 34 CFR 685.219; confirm current details with the U.S. Department of Education before you rely on them.
Where to find state attorney general jobs
Start each search at the office's own careers page, and where your state runs a central government job portal, check it for attorney postings across agencies too.
On LawFirmHires we collect government attorney jobs — assistant attorney general postings among them, as employers list them — in one place: browse government attorney jobs.
This page is career information, not legal advice. PSLF rules are set by federal regulation (34 CFR 685.219), and bar admission and conflict rules vary by state — confirm the current rule with the authority that administers it in your state, and program and pay details with each office you apply to.