Attorney General’s Opinions
Opinions of the Attorney General are available to the left in PDF format. To download them, you will need a reader such as Acrobat. (Download Acrobat.)
Recent Opinion Requests
Listed below are requests for opinions of the Attorney General. We will consider information and views of interested parties or other members of the public during the time period that the request is posted on this website.
Should you wish to submit any information or views on any of these requests, please send your comments to: Chief Counsel, Opinions and Advice, Attorney General's Office, 200 Saint Paul Place, Baltimore, Maryland 21202 or e-mail: [email protected]
Opinions FAQ
Under the Maryland Constitution (Article V, §3), the Attorney General is required to provide a written legal opinion whenever it's requested by certain state officials: the General Assembly, the Governor, the Comptroller, the Treasurer, or any State’s Attorney. These formal Opinions offer the Attorney General’s official interpretation of important legal questions—usually related to Maryland law or laws that guide how public officials operate in the state.
Most Opinions are written by an Assistant Attorney General and go through a careful review process involving other experienced attorneys in the office. Only after this review and final approval by the Attorney General does it become an official “Opinion of the Attorney General.”
It’s important to know that not all legal advice from this office is a formal Opinion. The Attorney General’s staff regularly provides legal advice through letters and memos to state officials. However, unless a document has gone through the formal review and approval process, it is not considered an official Opinion.
Each formal Opinion is labeled and numbered in the order it’s issued. Once completed, it’s sent to the official who requested it and is also posted on this website. Each year, these Opinions are compiled into printed volumes that are available in law libraries. You can also find them through legal research tools like Westlaw and Lexis.
The Maryland Attorney General’s Office offers support to local governments dealing with complex issues of state law. To make sure we can provide this help fairly and efficiently, we follow a few guidelines:
- The request must come from the local government's chief executive officer (like a mayor or county executive) or the leader of the local legislative body and must represent the full governing body.
- The issue should involve an important question of state law—not just a local concern.
- The request must be accompanied by the legal opinion and analysis of the local government's own lawyer.
- This process helps us give clear, well-informed legal advice where it matters most.
The Attorney General’s Office is not able to provide legal opinions to private individuals or lawyers. Due to limited resources and the extensive legal research involved, we are only able to respond to requests from government agencies and officials whom we are legally required to advise.
However, if you're looking for guidance on a legal issue, a previously issued Opinion of the Attorney General might cover your question. You can search for and download past Opinions on this website, or request a hard copy by emailing us at [email protected].