The Attorney General's Office has offices located in Olympia, Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane, Pullman, Kennewick, Everett, Yakima, Bellingham, Vancouver, Wenatchee and Port Angeles. Links to each city's visitor's bureau or chamber of commerce is offered below.
Applicants are asked to state divisional and geographic preferences and limitations when completing an application. Accordingly, it may be useful to know that of all of our offices Olympia offers the greatest number of positions and choice of divisions for AAG placement. Though the Seattle office ranks second in size, it experiences small turnover and attorney positions that do become available are most often filled by internal transfers. This can leave external external candidates who limit themselves to Seattle unsatisfied when they are placed in our pool but receive no subsequent divisional interviews. This chart illustrates in greater detail the infrequency of hiring of external attorney candidates into the Seattle office. While the chart reflects attorney hiring only, we find these trends to be true in law clerk hiring as well. This chart offers hiring activity from 2005 through 2008.
Olympia is central office for the Washington State Office of the Attorney General and is the State Capital. Located roughly 60 miles south of Seattle and 110 miles north of Portland, Olympia sits on the Greater Puget Sound and is both charming and stunning in its natural beauty. Olympia boasts affordable home prices, solid educational opportunities and a temperate climate. Olympia hosts many special events including Olympia Harbor Days on Labor Day, and Dixieland Jazz Fest in July. Olympia also hosts the Olympia Farmers Market which is the second largest outdoor market in the state. In 2009 Kiplinger ranked Olympia among its top cities and in doing so remarked upon Olympia's "thriving visual and performing arts scene".
The official web site for the city of Olympia is: http://www.ci.olympia.wa.us. The Olympia Chamber of Commerce is www.thurstonchamber.com. For a description of "Olympia The Livable City" with additional links, see: www.olympia-washington-living.com
The AGO maintains eight smaller, regional offices located in rural settings. The Regional Services Division combines these smaller offices into a single division. The Regional Services Division affords a unique working environment. Because the offices are smaller, they naturally create close-knit working relationships, and, unlike other divisions, where attorneys are often assigned to work with a single state agency, Regional Services' offices provide legal services to those agencies located in the community. The kind of work generally includes Social and Health Services, Labor and Industries, Education and Licensing and Administrative Law. This mix of work enables attorneys to broaden their legal expertise while providing locally consequential legal services directly to the community. These considerations apply equally to our Spokane and Tacoma divisions.
Bellingham: http://www.bellingham.com/
Everett: http://www.everettchamber.com/
Kennewick: http://www.visittri-cities.com/
Olympia: http://www.ci.olympia.wa.us; Thurston County: http://www.thurstonchamber.com
Port Angeles: http://www.portangeles.org/
Pullman: http://www.pullmanchamber.com/
Seattle: http://www.visitseattle.org/
Spokane: http://www.visitspokane.com/
Tacoma: http://www.cityofdestiny.com/
Vancouver: http://www.cityofvancouver.us/
Wenatchee: http://www.wenatcheevalley.org/
Yakima: http://www.everythingyakima.com/
It is also worth noting that the largest divisions, and thus the likely candidates for more vacancies through attrition, are the Social and Health Services and Labor and Industries divisions.
Although it is expected that attorneys remain in the division to which they were initially hired for a minimum of two years, the Office has a policy that allows AAGs to seek transfer opportunities from one division to another.