Solicitor General of the United States

Solicitor General of the United States
Jeffrey B. Wall Solicitor General ( executive )
Appointed by	Current President of the United States : Donald Trump
First incumbent	Benjamin Bristow
Current incumbent	Jeffrey B. Wall
Creation of office	June 22, 1870
Salutation	Mr. Solicitor General
Deputy	Principal Deputy Solicitor General currently: Jeff Wall
Website	justice.gov

The United States Solicitor General ( German  Supreme Attorney of the United States ) is a federal official in the United States who represents the federal government before the Supreme Court when it is a party in a legal dispute. He also decides in which cases the federal government will appeal against judgments and coordinates the representation of the government before the appellate courts .

He is appointed by the US President with the approval of the Senate and ranks fourth in the Justice Department after the Attorney General and his deputy, the Deputy Attorney General , and the Associate Attorney General . When appearing before the Supreme Court, the (male) incumbent (and his (male) assistants present) are traditionally dressed in a cutaway . From March 2009 to August 2010, Elena Kagan , who was sworn in as a judge at the Supreme Court on August 7, 2010, was the first woman to hold office. The current incumbent is Jeff Wall .

history

The Office of the Solicitor General was established in 1870 by the Congress created as part of the new Ministry of Justice, which should support the already longer existing Attorney General in carrying out its duties. The duties of the Solicitors General were previously performed by the Attorney General.

construction

Structure of the Solicitor General's Office

In addition to himself, the office of Solicitor General consists of four deputies who assist the holder of the office in processing the tasks. One of these deputies is the Principal Deputy Solictor General , who, like the Solicitor General, is politically determined and whose term of office therefore usually ends with that of the appointing President. The other three deputies are civil servants who generally act independently of the terms of office of the respective government.

In addition, the Solicitor General has 17 assistants. Typically, the most important cases are tried before the Supreme Court by the Solicitor General, while the less important cases are dealt with by a deputy or assistant.

List of incumbents

Solicitor General	image	Term of office	Appointed by
Benjamin Helm Bristow		October 11, 1870 - November 15, 1872	Ulysses S. Grant
Samuel Field Phillips		December 11, 1872 - May 1, 1885
John goode jr.		May 1, 1885 - August 5, 1886	Grover Cleveland
George Augustus Jenks		July 30, 1886 - May 29, 1889
Orlov W. Chapman		May 29, 1889 - January 19, 1890	Benjamin Harrison
William Howard Taft		February 4, 1890 - March 20, 1892
Charles Henry Aldrich		March 21, 1892 - May 28, 1893
Lawrence Maxwell Jr.		April 6, 1893 - January 30, 1895	Grover Cleveland
Holmes Conrad		February 6, 1895 - July 1, 1897
John Kelvey Richards		July 6, 1897 - March 16, 1903	William McKinley
Henry Martyn Hoyt Jr.		February 25, 1903 - March 31, 1909	Theodore Roosevelt
Lloyd Wheaton Bowers		April 1, 1909 - September 9, 1910	William Howard Taft
Frederick William Lehmann		December 12, 1910 - July 15, 1912
William Marshall Bullitt		July 16, 1912 - March 11, 1913
John William Davis		August 30, 1913 - November 26, 1918	Woodrow Wilson
Alexander Campbell King		November 27, 1918 - May 23, 1920
William Little Frierson		June 1, 1920 - June 30, 1921
James Montgomery Beck		June 1, 1921 - May 11, 1925	Warren G. Harding
William DeWitt Mitchell		June 4, 1925 - March 5, 1929	Calvin Coolidge
Charles Evans Hughes Jr.		May 27, 1929 - April 16, 1930	Herbert Hoover
Thomas Day Thacher		March 22, 1930 - May 4, 1933
James Crawford Biggs		May 5, 1933 - March 24, 1935	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Stanley Forman Reed		March 25, 1935 - January 10, 1938
Robert Houghwout Jackson		March 5, 1938 - January 17, 1940
Francis Beverley Biddle		January 22, 1940 - September 4, 1941
Charles H. Fahy		November 15, 1941 - September 27, 1945
James Howard McGrath		October 4, 1945 - October 7, 1946	Harry S. Truman
Philip Benjamin Perlman		July 30, 1947 - August 15, 1952
Walter Joseph Cummings Jr.		December 2, 1952 - March 1, 1953
Simon Ernest Sobeloff		February 10, 1954 - July 19, 1956	Dwight D. Eisenhower
James Lee Rankin		Aug. 4, 1956 - January 23, 1961
Archibald Cox Jr.		January 24, 1961 - July 31, 1965	John F. Kennedy
Thurgood Marshall		August 11, 1965 - August 30, 1967	Lyndon B. Johnson
Erwin Nathaniel Griswold		October 12, 1967 - June 25, 1973
Robert Heron Bork		June 27, 1973 - January 20, 1977	Richard Nixon
Daniel Mortimer Friedman ( acting )		January 20, 1977 - March 4, 1977	Jimmy Carter
Wade Hampton McCree Jr.		March 4, 1977 - June 30, 1981
Rex Edwin Lee		August 6, 1981 - June 1, 1985	Ronald Reagan
Charles Anthony Fried		October 23, 1985 - January 20, 1989
William Curtis Bryson ( acting )		January 20, 1989 - May 27, 1989	George Bush
Kenneth Winston Starr		May 27, 1989 - January 20, 1993
William Curtis Bryson ( acting )		January 20, 1993 - June 7, 1993	Bill Clinton
Drew Saunders Days III		June 7, 1993 - June 28, 1996
Walter Estes Dellinger III (acting)		June 28, 1996 - November 7, 1997
Seth Paul Waxman		November 7, 1997 - January 20, 2001
Barbara Dale Underwood (acting)		January 20, 2001 - June 13, 2001	George W. Bush
Theodore Bevry Olson		June 11, 2001 - July 13, 2004
Paul Drew Clement ( acting until June 13, 2005 )		July 13, 2004 - June 2, 2008
Gregory G. Garre ( acting until October 2, 2008 )		June 2, 2008 - January 20, 2009
Edwin S. Kneedler (acting)		January 20, 2009 - March 20, 2009	Barack Obama
Elena Kagan		March 20, 2009 - May 17, 2010
Neal Kumar Katyal (acting)		May 17, 2010 - June 9, 2011
Donald Beaton Verrilli Jr.		June 9, 2011 - June 25, 2016
Ian Heath Gershengorn (acting)		June 25, 2016 - January 20, 2017
Noel John Francisco (acting)		January 20, 2017 - March 10, 2017	Donald Trump
Jeffrey Bryan Wall (acting)		March 10, 2017 - September 19, 2017
Noel John Francisco		September 19, 2017 - July 3, 2020
Jeffrey Bryan Wall ( acting )		since July 3, 2020

Web links

• Official website on the page of the Justice Department (English)

Footnotes

1. ↑ 28 CFR 0.20
2. ↑ 28 USC §505
3. ^ Office of the Solicitor General: Meet the Solicitor General. Retrieved February 29, 2020 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au} Jost, Kenneth: The Supreme Court A to Z . 5th edition. CQ Press, Thousand Oaks 2012, ISBN 978-1-60871-744-6 , pp. 485 ff . (English, google.de [accessed on August 11, 2020]).