Introduction to Opinions

This Website contains the Opinions of the Attorney General issued since 1995. Opinions are issued in response to requests by state agency officials and local government attorneys. The opinions fall into two broad categories, formal and informal opinions. Formal opinions are those issued to state departments and agencies. They are denominated "formal" because the Attorney General signs them as chief legal officer of the State. Informal opinions are issued to local governments at the request of the attorney for the local government, who is the municipality's chief legal officer. Opinions issued to the municipal attorney are denominated "informal" because it is ultimately the responsibility of the municipal attorney to provide advice to the local government.

There are four ways to access opinions:

• by finding the opinion by number in the "Numerical Index"
• by finding the subject of the opinion in the "Subject Index"
• by finding a relevant statute in the "Statutory Index" and clicking a specific opinion number.
• by doing a "Search" using the opinion number(s), the statute number(s) or key words likely to be found in the opinion.

Opinions are numbered sequentially within each year. The informal opinions can be distinguished from the formal opinions through their designation. Informal opinions appear in the index as, for example, 96-1, i.e., the first informal opinion issued in 1996. Formal opinions appear as, for example, 96-F1. The F distinguishes the formal from the informal opinions.

The subject matter index identifies the opinions under subject categories. For example, if you were searching for opinions dealing with qualifications for holding public office, you would look under the designation "Public Officers" in the subject matter index.

The statutory index has a different focus. The vast majority of opinions cite specific statutes as authority for their conclusions. Every statute cited in the opinions of the Attorney General is included in the statutory index with a list of the opinions citing that statute. For example, if you were searching for interpretations of Public Officers Law § 17, you would look in the statutory index under the listing for Public Officers Law § 17 and find a list of opinions construing that section.