place_of_birth lacy thornburg
The Attorney General ___MASK83___ North Carolina is the elected head ___MASK83___ the state ' s Department ___MASK83___ Justice . The North Carolina constitution stipulates that the Attorney General ' s duties include providing legal representation and advice to all state agencies , though the extent ___MASK83___ this duty was called into question when United States Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that state Attorneys General should not squander their state ' s resources in defense ___MASK83___ laws they know to be unconstitutional . The state constitution also holds that , in defense ___MASK83___ the public interest , the Attorney General may initiate legal action or intervene in proceedings before any courts , regulatory officers , agencies or bodies  either state or federal  on behalf ___MASK83___ the state ' s agencies and citizens . The Attorney General also renders legal opinions , either formally or informally , upon all questions ___MASK83___ law submitted by the General Assembly , the Governor or any other state officer . Eric Himpton Holder Jr . ( born January 21 , 1951 ) served as the 82nd Attorney General ___MASK83___ the United States , from 2009 to 2015 . Holder , serving in the administration ___MASK83___ President Barack ___MASK9___ , is the first African American to hold the position ___MASK83___ U . S . Attorney General . Lacy Herman Thornburg ( born December 20 , 1929 ) is an American lawyer and former judge ; he served as the ___MASK25___ attorney general from 1985 to 1993 . After serving in the United States Army , Thornburg attended Mars Hill College when it was a junior college . He then earned a law degree at the University ___MASK83___ ___MASK25___ at Chapel Hill . He practiced law in Webster , ___MASK25___ from 1954 to 1967 , and was meanwhile elected to three terms ( 1961 -- 66 ) in the ___MASK25___ House ___MASK83___ Representatives . He was then appointed and later elected as a state superior court judge , serving from 1967 until 1983 . In 1992 , he unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat for governor ___MASK83___ ___MASK25___ . He was defeated in the primary by former governor Jim Hunt , who went on to win the general election . In 1995 , President Bill Clinton appointed Thornburg a United States District Court judge for the state ' s western district , based in Asheville , ___MASK25___ . He retired on August 31 , 2009 . He is the father ___MASK83___ Alan Z . Thornburg and Lacy E . Thornburg , a Harvard - educated orthopaedic surgeon practicing in the Asheville area . A stretch ___MASK83___ U . S . Highway 23 in ___MASK25___ is named for Thornburg . ___MASK25___ is a state in the southeastern region ___MASK83___ the United States . The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south , Tennessee to the west , Virginia to the north , and the ___MASK74___ to the east . ___MASK25___ is the 28th most extensive and the 9th most populous ___MASK83___ the U . S . states . The state is divided into 100 counties . The capital is ___MASK87___ . The most populous municipality is ___MASK34___ , and it is the second largest banking center in the United States after New York City . In ___MASK17___ common law jurisdictions , the attorney general ( sometimes abbreviated as AG ) or attorney - general ( pluralized as attorneys general or attorneys - general , as " general " is a postpositive adjective ) is the main legal advisor to the government , and in some jurisdictions they may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement , prosecutions or even responsibility for legal affairs generally . In practice , the extent to which the attorney - general personally provides legal advice to the government varies between jurisdictions , and even between individual office - holders within the same jurisdiction , often depending on the level and nature ___MASK83___ the office - holder ' s prior legal experience . The United States Attorney General ( A . G .) is the head ___MASK83___ the United States Department ___MASK83___ Justice per , concerned with legal affairs , and is the chief law enforcement officer and chief lawyer ___MASK83___ the United States government . The office is currently held by Dana J . Boente , who assumed the office on January 30 , 2017 after the firing ___MASK83___ acting Attorney General Sally Yates . The attorney general serves as a member ___MASK83___ the Cabinet ___MASK83___ the President ___MASK83___ the United States and is the only cabinet officer who does not have the title ___MASK83___ secretary .