James Tierney

James E. Tierney (born April 12, 1947) is an American lawyer, lecturer in law at Harvard Law School, He served as Attorney General of Maine from 1980 until 1990.

At 25, Tierney was elected to the Maine House of Representatives as a Democrat from Lisbon, Maine. After eight years in the Maine Legislature, where he was elected Majority Leader at the age of 29, Tierney became the Maine Attorney General. He served in that capacity for ten years during which time he was active on a wide variety of state and national issues.

In 1986, Tierney ran for Governor of Maine. He won a crowded Democratic primary, and advanced to the general election against Republican nominee John R. McKernan Jr.. Tierney lost by over 40,000 votes in a four-way race featuring two independents receiving over 15% of the vote each. After leaving office of Attorney General in 1990, he began a career as a consultant to attorneys general.

In December 1992, he was named as special attorney general to investigate misconduct allegations on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Tierney has been characterized by state attorneys general and the media as "America's 51st Attorney General."

From 2000 to 2016, Tierney was the Director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School. In 2006, Columbia students recognized him as the Public Interest Law Professor of the Year. Since 2016, he has been a lecturer in law at Harvard Law School where he teaches on the role of state attorneys general while directing the Harvard Attorney General clinic.

Tierney also has advised officials in Eastern Europe's emerging democracies, has supervised national elections in Bulgaria, Cameroon, Croatia and Albania, and was special counsel in the investigation of alleged corruption within the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Tierney, a graduate of the University of Maine School of Law, married Maine author Elizabeth Strout in 2011.