What are the solicitor generals main responsibilities? How is the job different from attorney general?
The work of the solicitor general’s office can essentially be broken down into three separate duties. The first is to act as the chief counsel representing the federal government in cases before the Supreme Court, which involves helping to formulate the government’s position and conducting oral argument. Charles Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School who was solicitor general from 1985-1989, said that this task requires an exceptionally skilled attorney. “There is a very great assumption not what the solicitor general is saying is correct, that she has a better argument, but that the statement of the facts will be meticulously, scrupulously correct, that the case will have been presented accurately,” Fried said. Second, the solicitor general’s office decides which cases to bring before the Supreme Court. When the government loses at the trial stage, the solicitor general has sole discretion over whether to appeal the case. This requires thoroughly reviewing the importance of differen
