Attorney General Letitia ‘Tish’ James Has Spent Her Entire Career Working for the Public Good

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Attorney General Letitia ‘Tish’ James has spent her entire career working for the public good. She is the first woman of color to hold statewide office in New York, and the first woman to be elected New York Attorney General.

Letitia has been a public defender, worked in Albany, and served on the New York City Council, where she passed legislation forcing landlords to improve living conditions in the city’s worst buildings, and helped to uncover the $600 million CityTime fraud, the biggest in city history. In 2013, she was elected Public Advocate for the City of New York. Her office handled over 32,000 constituent complaints and passed more legislation than all previous Public Advocates combined, including a groundbreaking law that banned questions about salary history from the hiring process, to help close the gender pay gap. As Public Advocate, she stood up for our most vulnerable communities and served as a watchdog over New York City government agencies. Her leadership transformed the Public Advocate’s office into a formidable engine of change.

Now, as Attorney General and head of the state’s Department of Law, Letitia is both the ‘People’s Lawyer’ and the state’s chief legal officer, serving as the guardian of the legal rights of the citizens of New York, its organizations, and its natural resources.

Every day, Letitia fights and delivers for the people of New York. Her office has mounted key cases against the gun lobby, Big Tech, and big pharmaceutical companies, winning over a billion dollars in opioid settlements to invest in communities statewide. She sued the Trump administration more than 75 times, protecting workers, immigrants, health care, voting, the environment, and the Constitution. Her office has taken down hundreds of drug and gun traffickers, and removed thousands of deadly weapons from our streets. She has gone after bad landlords, predatory lenders, and financial scammers, who prey on the vulnerable and try to cheat our neighbors. She has fought for better conditions at nursing homes, protecting our elderly loved ones. And she has stood up for New Yorkers throughout the pandemic, cracking down on price gouging, fighting for safe workplaces, and helping families to stop evictions.