The "Attorney-General" is the person who is in charge of government administration of the whole. Continue Reading. This is one of the rare occasions in English where the adjective comes after the noun.
The plural is “secretaries of state,” as in, “Hillary Clinton and John Kerry served as Barack Obama’s secretaries of state.”
You refer to a lawn or pasture as being covered with grass - meaning with vegetation, consisting of typically short plants with long, narrow leaves, growing wild or cultivated.
There isn't really a good answer. The English possessive does not adapt well to noun phrases in general. Even setting aside the somewhat dubious importation of the plural "attorneys general" from the French, describing the bill for the customer who ordered Diet Pepsi as "the customer who ordered the Diet Pepsi's bill" is confusing, even if some style guides would call it technically correct.
As such, you always pluralize the noun, which in this case is not "Attorney-General" but "Attorney". If the same office were more modern you would call the position "General Attorney" to use the modern adjective order and several of them would be "General Attorneys".
Applying these rules to attorney general, we see that the plural is attorneys general, the singular possessive is
A quick Westlaw search of AllFeds confirms this. I found only 224 hits for “Attorney’s General” and 10,000+ hits for “Attorney General’s.”
The only General at the Supreme Court is General Suter. But why does it get messed up when you make it possessive. Say, for example, you wanted to refer to a brief the Attorney General filed. I would think it is correct to write “the Attorney’s General brief.”. But that sounds off.
The first known use of the term “attorney general” occurred in England in 1398 in a certificate from the Duke of Norfolk’s four attorneys general. These lawyers were known at first as general attorneys, and later came to be known as attorneys general. Hence, the awkward phrasing.
The other is from Justice McLean ’s dissenting opinion Ex Parte Wells (1855). I also think this is a typo.
With “Attorney General,” general modifies the noun attorney. Thus, when there is more than one Attorney General, you would write “Attorneys General.”. This makes sense. You make the noun plural by adding an “s” to it.
As chief legal officers of the states, commonwealths, District of Columbia, and territories of the United States, the role of an attorney general is to serve as counselor to state government agencies and legislatures, and as a representative of the public interest.
The People’s Lawyer is a biweekly podcast from NAAG that explores the role of state and territory attorneys general as chief legal officers and their work protecting the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.
a list of items found in Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution that set forth the authoritative capacity of Congress.
the power to hear a case for the first time, as opposed to appellate jurisdiction, when a court has the power to review a lower court's decision.
Article 6, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution establishes the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and U.S. Treaties as "the supreme law of the land."
an autocratic or authoritarian form of government in which a government is ruled by either an individual: a dictator, or an authoritarian party, as in an oligarchy.
Attorney General Ken Paxton’s position is clear that the governor’s orders and state law apply to all Texans and protect their right to make
We regularly identify unique threats to Texas—and we take action to defeat them.
Ken Paxton is the 51st Attorney General of Texas. He was elected on November 4, 2014, and sworn into office on January 5, 2015.
The plural form of attorney general is attorneys general or attorney generals (US) .
And private attorneys general who are seeking constructive trusts and corrective advertising are trusts plaintiff.