
Lecturers on Law Jim Tierney and Peter Brann teach the required clinical course, the Role of the State Attorney General, in the fall semester. Professor Tierney oversees and directs the clinic.
This clinic is available in the fall, winter, and spring terms. Students may only participate in one term. Students may continue their winter work remotely from HLS during the spring term as an advanced clinical student if Professor Tierney and the placement and supervisor confirm that there is sufficient work to support additional spring clinical credits.
The fall and spring Government Lawyer: Attorney General Clinic offers students the opportunity to work with the Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General. Clinical student responsibilities include writing and research pertinent to the division in which they are placed. Potential divisions include the Criminal Bureau, Government Bureau, and Public Protection Bureau. Placements are arranged by the State Attorney General’s office based on capacity in coordination with the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs. All work assignments will be at the direction and supervision of the Massachusetts Office of Attorney General.
During winter term, students work in State Attorney General Offices around the country. Clinical work is full-time and care will be taken to place students in both states and divisions that meet their professional goals, although particular placements are not guaranteed. Winter term placements are in various divisions of a State AG office: environment, criminal trials and appeals, human trafficking, civil defense, opinion and consumer protection. Students have worked in 34 different states including California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Texas.
Clinical placement work assignments are made completely separately from HLS and are under the supervision of the external externship placement organization.
Office of the Massachusetts Attorney General
How to Register
The clinic is offered in the Fall, Winter, and Spring semesters. You can learn about the required clinical course component, clinical credits and the clinical registration process by reading the course catalog description and exploring the links in this section.
Fall 2025 Early Drop Deadline: August 11, 2025
Meet the Instructor

Jim Tierney
Director; Lecturer on Law
jtierney@law.harvard.edu
James Tierney is a Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. Since 2010, Mr. Tierney has taught courses on the role of state attorneys general and has directed the attorney general clinic. He taught a similar course at Columbia Law School from 2000 until 2016, where he was the Director of the National State Attorney General Program, and was a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School in the Spring of 2018. He is currently the director of StateAG.org, which is an educational resource on the office of state attorney general. Mr. Tierney served as the Attorney General of Maine from 1980 until 1990. During those years, Mr. Tierney played an active role in the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) and served on its various committees. Since 1990 he has instructed newly elected state Attorneys General on the effective performance of their office and consulted for numerous offices of attorneys general on a host of structural, legal and ethical issues. Mr. Tierney has served as a Special Prosecutor in Florida, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Vermont and, on behalf of NAAG, has authored an analysis of the operations of state grand jury practice. He travels regularly to visit in offices of attorney general where he conducts ethics seminars for attorneys general and their staffs. He received his J.D. from University of Maine, Portland, and his B.A., highest honors, from the University of Maine, Orono.

Peter Brann
Lecturer on Law
Peter Brann is a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School and a partner at Brann & Isaacson, where he handles complex corporate and intellectual property litigation. He also represents companies and individuals in their dealings with the government, and has been hired by governments as outside counsel. He has litigated cases in state and federal court in over 20 states and before state and federal agencies, and has represented over a dozen of the 100 largest Internet retailers. He has tried as lead counsel several multi–million dollar cases to jury verdict.
Brann previously served for 18 years as an Assistant Attorney General and then the State Solicitor for the State of Maine. In the latter capacity, he was responsible for all civil appeals for the State of Maine. In 1999, he won the National Association of Attorneys General award for Best Brief in the U.S. Supreme Court as lead counsel in Alden v. Maine, 527 U.S. 706 (1999), which he also argued and won. He has acted as lead counsel in over 100 appeals for public and private party clients in the U.S. Supreme Court, most of the U.S. Courts of Appeal, and state appellate courts in 7 states.
In 2010-16, Brann was a Visiting Adjunct Lecturer at Columbia Law School, co–teaching with James Tierney a seminar entitled, “The Role of the State Attorney General.” In 2019, he co-taught this class as an Adjunct Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. In the fourth edition of America Votes! (B. Griffith and J. Young, ed.) published in 2019 by the American Bar Association, Brann wrote the chapter entitled “Ranked-Choice Voting: Maine’s Experience.” He received his J.D. from Boston University School of Law, and holds a B.A. from Bates College.
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