Letitia James
Letitia Ann "Tish" James is an American lawyer and politician from the state of New York. She has served since 2019 as the 67th attorney general of New York, having been first elected to the post in 2018. A member of the Democratic Party, James is the first Black person to serve as New York attorney general and is the first Black woman to hold statewide office in New York.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, James graduated from Lehman College in the Bronx before obtaining her Juris Doctor degree at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She worked as a public defender, then on staff in the New York State Assembly, and later as a New York State Assistant Attorney General in the Brooklyn regional office. James served as a member of the New York City Council from 2004 to 2013. She represented the 35th district, which includes the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, parts of Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and Bedford–Stuyvesant. James chaired the committees on economic development and sanitation and served on several others. From 2013 to 2018, she was the New York City Public Advocate, making her the first African American woman to be elected to and hold citywide office in New York City.
James' office filed a civil suit against Donald Trump that resulted in penalties and a fine of more than four hundred million dollars. A divided appeals court upheld Trump's liability but voided the penalty as excessive. Both sides appealed to the New York Court of Appeals. James was briefly a candidate in the 2022 New York gubernatorial election, but suspended her campaign in December 2021, opting to instead run for reelection as Attorney General.
In October 2025, James was federally indicted on one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution. James pled not guilty to the charges. The case was dismissed by a federal judge on November 24, 2025, after which two other grand juries refused to bring charges against her again. Her lawyers described the government's actions as selective and vindictive.
Early life and education
Letitia Ann James was born on October 18, 1958, in Brooklyn, New York. She is one of eight children born to Nellie James and Robert James. She attended New York City public schools. Raised in Park Slope, Brooklyn, she attended Fort Hamilton High School in nearby Bay Ridge. She received her Bachelor of Arts from the City University of New York's Lehman College in 1981, majoring in liberal arts with an emphasis in social work.James received her Juris Doctor degree from Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. in 1987, and was admitted to practice law in New York State in 1989.
James earned a Master of Public Administration degree in 2013 from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, located in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan. She later served as Columbia University's William S. Beinecke Visiting Professor of Public Policy in the Faculty of International and Public Affairs.
Career
James served as a public defender for the Legal Aid Society and established the Urban Network, a coalition of African-American professional organizations aimed at providing scholarships for inner city youth.She served on former New York Governor Mario Cuomo's Task Force on Diversity in the Judiciary. She served as counsel for Albert Vann, Chief of Staff for Roger L. Green in the New York State Assembly, and in the administration of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. She was appointed the first Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Brooklyn regional office in 1999. While working in that position, James worked in many capacities but notably focused on consumer complaints involving predatory lending and other unlawful business practices.
2001 and 2003 city council races
James's first run for the 35th Council district was in November 2001. In a close race, James received 42% of the vote on the Working Families Party line but lost to James E. Davis, a Democrat. In July 2003, just months before the next election, Davis was assassinated by Othniel Askew, a former political rival. Following Davis's death, his brother Geoffrey ran for his vacant council seat on the Democratic Party ticket, but on election day, November 4, 2003, Geoffrey A. Davis lost by a large margin to James as the Working Families Party nominee. In that 2003 race, James officially became a member of the Working Families Party, and was the first citywide office-holder to run solely on the WFP line.City council tenure
James is the first member of the Working Families Party to win office in New York State, and the first third-party member to be elected to the city council since 1977. She has since changed back to the Democratic party. She again won the Working Families and the Democratic parties' nominations by a large margin over Samuel Eric Blackwell, an urban planner at Long Island University and pro-stadium advocate. She was re-elected on the Democratic line on November 8, 2005, with 88.11% of the vote, compared to 6.80% for Republican Anthony Herbert, and 5.08% for Independence Party candidate Charles B. Billups.On October 10, 2006, there was a devastating fire at the Broken Angel House, an architectural icon in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. The fire attracted attention from the New York City Department of Buildings, which resulted in citations being issued for numerous building code violations. James represented Broken Angel's owner, Arthur Wood, pro bono in his negotiations to keep his home. The agency decided to allow Wood to re-occupy Broken Angel provided the upper levels were taken down and the central stairwell reconstructed.
She was the first to question cost overruns and irregularities in the subcontracting work of the new CityTime payroll system much touted by Bloomberg which eventually led to several indictments, Bloomberg asking a tech giant for $600 million back, and two consultants fleeing the country in 2011.
James originally advocated for the demolition of the Second Empire houses on Admiral's Row in order to build a parking lot for a proposed supermarket to serve residents in nearby housing developments, but later supported preserving some of the historic housing. In 2008, James, with Bill de Blasio, advocated against Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempts to seek a third term without a voter referendum.
James won the Democratic primary in September 2009 against her opponents, community organizer Delia Hunley-Adossa, who received more than $200,000 from Forest City Ratner and Medhanie Estiphanos, a financial consultant. James went on to win re-election for a second term.
In May 2013, with a group that included construction unions, community groups and other elected officials, she was a part of an Article 78 lawsuit against the Bloomberg administration and Acadia Realty Trust seeking the shut-down of the City Point real estate project and a reassessment of its environmental impact.
In June 2016, James attempted to pressure six financial institutions, including BB&T, Berkshire Bank, Citizens Financial Group, People's United Bank, Regions Financial Corporation and TD Bank, into ending its practice of providing financial services to gun manufacturers. BB&T was specifically requested to drop the accounts of SIG Sauer of New Hampshire, but denied the request.
Committee assignments
- Committee on Economic Development
- Committee on Sanitation
- Committee on Parks & Recreation
- Committee on Small Business
- Committee on Technology in Government
- Committee on Veteran Affairs
- Committee on Women's Issues
Public Advocate
In the 2013 election campaign for Public Advocate, James was endorsed by many of the city's important labor unions, NOW, Planned Parenthood, Democracy for NYC, League of Conservation Voters, Amsterdam News and El Diario. On October 1, 2013, James achieved a Democratic primary win in spite of her campaign fundraising trailing Daniel Squadron's and Reshma Saujani, to become the Democratic Party's nominee for New York City's elected watchdog position. She was endorsed by third-place finisher Saujani in September James won the Democratic runoff election. Without a Republican opponent, she won the general election with over 83% of the vote.
In 2017, James won the Democratic primary for her position with 77% of the vote, over closest competitor David Eisenbach's 23%.