Chuck Slemp welcomes Lacey Mase, the chief deputy attorney general of Tennessee, to explore the inner workings of an AG's office and the pivotal role of its senior staff in driving legal and policy outcomes.
In this episode of Regulatory Oversight, Chuck Slemp welcomes Lacey Mase, the chief deputy attorney general (AG) of Tennessee, to explore the inner workings of an AG's office and the pivotal role of its senior staff in driving legal and policy outcomes.
Mase, who previously served for more than nine years in the Texas AG’s office, begins by sharing insights into her journey and responsibilities since joining the Tennessee AG's office in January 2021. She emphasizes the importance of senior staff as the bridge connecting various stakeholders and shaping legal policy across the U.S.
Chuck and Mase also discuss the structure and operations of the Tennessee AG's office, while highlighting its focus on civil law and the diverse legal matters it handles. Mase shares her experiences in handling high-profile cases, such as the NCAA antitrust lawsuit, underscoring the collaborative efforts among AG offices nationwide.
Regulatory Oversight Podcast — Behind the Scenes: The Role of Senior Staff in AG Offices
Hosts: Stephen Piepgrass and Chuck Slemp
Guests: Lacey Mase
Air Date: January 22, 2025
Stephen Piepgrass:
Welcome to another episode of Regulatory Oversight, a podcast that focuses on providing expert perspective on trends that drive regulatory enforcement activity. I'm Stephen Piepgrass, one of the hosts of the podcast, and the leader of our firm's Regulatory Investigations, Strategy, and Enforcement Practice Group. This podcast features insights from members of our practice group, including its nationally ranked state attorney's general team, as well as guest commentary from business leaders, regulatory experts, and current and former government officials. We cover a wide range of topics affecting businesses that operate in highly regulated areas.
Before we get started today, I want to remind all our listeners to visit and subscribe to our blog at RegulatoryOversight.com, so you can stay up to date on developments and changes in the regulatory landscape.
Today, my colleague, Chuck Slemp, is joined by Chief Deputy Attorney General Lacey Mase from the Tennessee Attorney General's Office to discuss the critical role of the Attorney General's Office and its senior staff in shaping national legal policy. By way of introduction, Chuck Slemp is a member of our Regulatory Investigations, Strategy, and Enforcement Group and former Chief Deputy in the Virginia Attorney General's Office. In that role, he oversaw the Department of Law and managed a team of attorneys handling complex litigation and investigations and directed legislative affairs.
Lacey joined the Tennessee Attorney General's office in January, 2021 as Executive Counsel, monitoring the office's most significant legal matters and executing workflow and oversight improvement projects. Before becoming chief deputy, she was the deputy AG for the healthcare division and counsel to the attorney general. Prior to serving the State of Tennessee, Lacey spent over nine years in the Texas Attorney General's Office as a civil litigator and served in various executive leadership positions.
Lacey and Chuck, I want to thank both of you for joining me today with your similar experiences in various attorney’s general offices. I know we're all looking forward to hearing your insights into the office's responsibilities and, Lacey, particularly the work you've been doing in Tennessee.
Chuck Slemp:
Welcome to today's podcast. I'm thrilled to have with us, Lacey Mase, the Chief Deputy Attorney General of Tennessee. Lacey has become one of the prominent leaders across the AG community. She spent a little over nine years as the Texas Attorney General's office as a chief litigator and in various leadership positions before joining the Tennessee AG's office in January of '21 as executive counsel. In this role, she monitored the office's most significant legal matters and executed workflow and oversight improvement projects at the direction of the AG. When Attorney General Skrmetti took office in September of 2022, he appointed Lacey to be his Chief Deputy Attorney General.
When I served as Chief Deputy in Virginia, I got to know Lacey, and we work closely together on so many important issues for our respective states. As a former CDAG, I know how important it is and sometimes how thankless the job is that you do, Lacey, and so thank you for taking time away from your incredibly busy job, and thank you for the public service that you render for your state. Most of all, thanks for your friendship. I'm so excited about the podcast today and that you're able to join us.
Lacey Mase:
Chuck, thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here with you and grateful for the time that we had to be public servants together. This is a fun way to get back together.
Chuck Slemp:
Absolutely. Well, I know we don't have a lot of time, so let's just dive in. Folks often don't realize what goes on behind the scenes in the attorney general's office. I mean, the work that AGs do is incredibly important. Dare I say it, the AG is truly one of the most important and most powerful public officials in all of government, regardless of what state you come from. Senior staff are also vital in making it all happen, as you know. Can you describe for us how you see the role of senior staff playing within attorney's general offices across the country and how those roles at front-end staff, how they play shaping legal policy nationwide?
Lacey Mase:
Sure. You said it. Being attorney general is a huge job. There are so many people and issues competing for the AG's time and attention, so an excellent senior staff is vital to keeping the wheels turning, really. Who is the senior staff? Senior staff is usually some combination of a chief deputy attorney general like I am, a chief of staff. There’s just a solicitor general. There's always senior advisors and sometimes an operations director. I like to think of the senior staff as the bridge. They're the bridge between the AG and their office's attorneys and other professionals like com staff and HR and fiscal. They're the bridge between the client and the attorney general, the bridge between state lawmakers and the AG, the bridge between their own office and other attorney’s general offices. Oftentimes, they're the bridge between private law firms like Troutman and the attorney general.
When I say they're the bridge, I mean that senior staff kind of exists to connect and manage and make decisions on behalf of the AG where all these different groups are concerned. You asked how senior staff helped shape legal policy nationally. I think a lot of people don't realize how connected AG's offices are across the country. Generally, what connects those offices are the AGs to some extent, but they're senior staff, usually their chief deputies and their chiefs of staff. Then interestingly, their consumer protection divisions also seem to connect them.
The senior staff are usually really keyed into legal trends that impact many, if not all of the states at the same time. These could be consumer protection issues like opioids and social media. State legislatures across the country may all pass similar laws at the same time or within a couple of years of each other. State AGs will defend the constitutionality of those laws at the same time. Federal government overreach may be and really has been a significant issue over the last several years. Many AG’s offices have been simultaneously pushing back on the overreach.
When multiple states are fighting on the same front, the senior staff kind of get in the trenches together to share ideas and intellectual horsepower and many times resources. Kind of being in the trenches together really does shape the legal landscape and how cases are handled across the country at any given time.
Chuck Slemp:
It’s funny that you described it as this special network of friends. I oftentimes say that no one else knows the wealth and the breadth of the issues that you face as a chief deputy than another chief deputy. Maybe we just call it shared trauma. I don't know.
Lacey Mase:
I think that's exactly right. Yes.
Chuck Slemp:
The shared experience. Well, tell us a little bit about the makeup of the AG's office in Tennessee. How large is your office? What different divisions maybe do you have, and what role do you specifically play as chief deputy there in Nashville?
Lacey Mase:
I would say the Tennessee AG's office is a medium-sized AG's office. We have about 300 employees, and roughly 200 of those are attorneys. Some AG's offices have significant criminal jurisdiction. We do not. Ours is very, very limited. We are primarily a civil law firm. We have 16 legal divisions in five sections that are organized by common practice area. We do both defense and plaintiff's side work, and handle everything from classic towards slip and falls and car accidents, breach of contract cases. We do complex constitutional defense litigation. We investigate and enforce civil Medicaid fraud statutes. We, of course, handle consumer fraud issues and antitrust litigation. We defend state agency administrative actions. We provide lots and lots of client advice and counsel.
Our criminal justice section handles all of the state criminal appeals and then, of course, all of our state's federal habeas corpus litigation. We have an office of solicitor general, which handles all appellate work for the State of Tennessee. Then we have a recently established strategic litigation unit. These are starting to pop up all over the country. I think when I was at the Texas AG's office, we called it special litigation division, but it was very similar and may handle the state's highest profile constitutional and administrative challenges. We have about, I would say, 10,000 open matters at any given time, so we are a very busy office. No shortage of work to do.
Chuck Slemp:
It's so much.
Lacey Mase:
It's so much stuff.
Chuck Slemp:
So much stuff.
Lacey Mase:
It is so much.
Chuck Slemp:
What's unique about your role, managing everything, is you kind of get to know a little bit about a lot, a little bit about everything. That was one of the things I loved about the role. Unfortunately, I couldn't be involved in every single thing, but you get to know about most of it, right?
Lacey Mase:
Yes, absolutely. That's one of the biggest challenges of being a chief deputy is you have to have an idea of what all of your people are doing, but you can't be a subject matter expert. You've got to know exactly who you can rely on to make sure that good decisions are being made and that we're doing our work with excellence. Sometimes, Chuck, I don't know if you felt this way, but sometimes I feel like my brain is just full. It's like a rolodex or something with all of these little bits of information, and there's not one more slot for another card in the rolodex. You're exactly right.
Chuck Slemp:
You do it flawlessly, though. Hopefully, you're not feeling that internal stress that I felt every day the weight of the world on you as you do those. But you make it look easy.
Lacey Mase:
You're a good friend, Chuck.
Chuck Slemp:
Well –
Lacey Mase:
I don't know about that.
Chuck Slemp:
You do. You do. Can you explain your role and the responsibilities? I guess you already have a little bit, but how it differs from the other legal positions within state government?
Lacey Mase:
I have held several different positions within an AG's office. I've never worked in any other position in state government. I'm not sure that this is necessarily unique to being chief deputy. But when I think about being chief deputy, I think you are almost like a Swiss army knife. You have to have so many different skills and so much information. You have to be able to kind of pull one thing out and then put it back up immediately and then pull another tool out.
Chuck Slemp:
That's so good.
Lacey Mase:
I know. You want to make sure that none of the little pieces of the Swiss army knife are getting stuck. You just want it to be smooth. It’s not just about knowing lots of different areas of the law, but you have to know so many different people, who to call for what and when. What does the AG need to know? What does he not want to know? It's just you have lots of tools in your tool belt.
Chuck Slemp:
Well, switching up just a little bit, I'm curious. I mean, as you talk about all the different matters that your office is involved in and the great work that you guys are doing in Nashville, I want to note, AG Skrmetti is known as a leader across the nation on a host of consumer protection issues. You and he seem to work so well together. Can you talk just a little bit about how you and the AG lead the nation in such a dynamic way and the role that your office plays in shaping the legal landscape, particularly in the areas like consumer protection and antitrust and federal overreach?
Lacey Mase:
I would love to talk about this. I just want to start by saying that Attorney General Skrmetti has built a great senior staff, and it is such a privilege to serve alongside him. He's a brilliant attorney and an even better person. I think that he really challenges all of us to be better. We really trust each other, too. We can be honest with each other. Importantly, with General Skrmetti, when we think maybe a different attorney approach is required or – one of my jobs is to make sure that I see the whole field. He's just created this culture where we can really be honest with each other, and we do a lot of rumbling. Do you know what rumbling is, Chuck?
Chuck Slemp:
Oh, gosh. I can only imagine.
Lacey Mase:
There's this popular self-help author, I won't say her name, that coined this phrase. It's where you can really be vulnerable, and everybody has the freedom to express their thoughts and ideas in a respectful way, of course. We're just wrestling with ideas, whether they're big ideas or small ideas or big issues or small issues, to make sure we get to the right outcome. I think just that and then always trying to keep each other in the loop and be on the same page really helps us lead with unity.
As for shaping the legal landscape in areas like consumer protection and antitrust and federal overreach, we really have an incredible team. I've worked with a lot of attorneys and legal professionals in both government and the private sector. I feel pretty confident saying that the Tennessee AG's office has some of the best attorneys in the country. General Skrmetti has done an amazing job of attracting incredible talent that has allowed us to step into more critical roles on legal issues of national importance. Keeping the amazing talent that we already had here, we've significantly reduced turnover since General Skrmetti came into office. The more great work that we do that matters to people, the more people want to join in the fun.
Chuck Slemp:
That's huge.
Lacey Mase:
Yes, it is huge.
Chuck Slemp:
AG Skrmetti was recently featured in a national review article as – the quote they used is “the real deal.”
Lacey Mase:
The real deal.
Chuck Slemp:
That's how they described it. It highlights some of your office's key accomplishments over the past two years, so I'm curious. What do you see as maybe some of your most significant victories, things that you've helped shape since taking office in this role in Tennessee, what was it, two years ago?
Lacey Mase:
Okay, this is a fun question. First, I'm going to brag on our attorneys whose cases don't make the paper. I think a lot of people don't realize that, I mentioned earlier, we have more than 10,000 open matters. We're just doing exceptional work for the State of Tennessee every day. We win some. We lose some. But I can't help but give a shout out there.
Chuck Slemp:
Day in and day out. That stuff doesn't make the papers.
Lacey Mase:
No, it doesn't. But there's some amazing public service happening in those trenches. A couple of our big victories have been just a real joy to get to work on and see play out and, frankly, just a lot of fun. I'll start with our NCAA case, which this is an antitrust lawsuit that we filed against the NCAA. Chuck, your former boss, General Miyares, was our partner in filing that lawsuit. In that case, the Federal Court in the Eastern District of Tennessee enjoined the NCAA from enforcing any of its anticompetitive restrictions on the ability of current and future student athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness.
The rules that we were challenging, they prohibit prospective student athletes from discussing potential NIL opportunities with schools and collectives prior to enrolling. It would be like if employers could require prospective employees to commit to working for them without actually telling them what the salary and benefits would be until they started working there. That was just, especially if you were a college sports fan, which I am, Hook ‘em Horns, this was a huge, amazing victory for Tennessee current and prospective student athletes. We were grateful for Virginia's partnership there.
Another group of cases that are so important are our social media cases. We had several investigations and some litigation ongoing involving social media and its impact on kids in particular. Then we have a host of cases that we've handled involving Google. Recently, actually, we had a huge trial victory against Google involving their monopolistic search engines. That was a really cool case because we actually got to send two of our junior lawyers to DC for a multi-week trial, which, I mean, what junior lawyers get to go to trial anymore.
Chuck Slemp:
For real.
Lacey Mase:
I know. I was so excited.
Chuck Slemp:
Especially at this level.
Lacey Mase:
Yes, absolutely. That's just another cool thing about working in an AG's office is you get those special opportunities that you may not elsewhere. Then another really important case, we had a victory in the appellate courts and are hoping for a victory at the United States Supreme Court. It involves a law that was passed by our general assembly a couple of years ago that prohibits doctors from providing gender transition interventions to minors. Our solicitor general will argue this case on behalf of the State of Tennessee this Wednesday, actually.
In that case, a group of private plaintiffs and the United States have challenged the constitutionality. This law, and not just in Tennessee, but other states have passed it across the country, arguing that it violates the Equal Protection Clause. In that case, the district court partially enjoined the law, and the Sixth Circuit reversed it, allowing the law to go into effect. When you ask about how a chief deputy or how I have been involved and helped shape some of these victories, I'm not in the weeds on these cases. I don't write briefs. I don't do memos. I log into Westlaw occasionally.
Chuck Slemp:
They wouldn't let me, by the way. I tried to write a brief one day, and they said, “Chuck, you got more important things to do. Come on.”
Lacey Mase:
Exactly. Leave that to the professionals is how that would go around here. But I would just say on that one, putting together the legal team was so important, and I was so thoughtful about that. In a case like that where the issues are very sensitive, and it has potentially major ramifications, and really the decision will probably go down in history, we just had to be really sure about every minor detail along the way. I'm just really, really excited about how it's gone and hopeful for the outcome.
Chuck Slemp:
That's so awesome. Well, I'm so glad that you mentioned the work that we did together on the NCAA case. Let me share this. As a Virginian who grew up on the line between Virginia and Tennessee, I loved working with the team in Tennessee. Well, I was at the AG's office. You and I were actually working, and we didn't actually get to go when AG Miyares and AG Skrmetti walked along State Street together in downtown Bristol. That was a highlight of their trip and I think just forged their working relationship together. But, of course, we were in the trenches working back at the office.
Lacey Mase:
Yes.
Chuck Slemp:
I think, though, that highlights the way that AGs work across state lines together to lead. You've already mentioned some of those multistates, and I really appreciate the work that you guys did with us and our team there in Virginia. Let me switch gears. Tennessee is unique. Your AG is not elected. How does this unique AG selection process impact the legal landscape in Tennessee?
Lacey Mase:
The Tennessee AG is appointed to an eight-year term. I would say that one of the best things about having an appointed AG is you have an AG who is focused 100% on the work of the office and doesn't have to balance the demands of campaigning with the work of the office. For an elected AG, that's just the job. You're balancing those things. But for an appointed AG, they just get to come to work and be the AG for eight years in our state. That also brings a lot of continuity. People tend to stay because you're working with an AG and, hopefully, a senior staff who are providing consistent leadership and vision and all of those things. There's this ease that doesn't exist when you work for an elected, a lack of anxiety maybe because you know what to expect for more than a few years. I particularly love that part.
Chuck Slemp:
Well, in addition to being the skilled litigator and amazingly talented manager of your office, as we can see here, you're also a mom, Lacey. How do you juggle it all?
Lacey Mase:
Well, I think if you asked my sons and my husband, they would say that I'm not juggling at all. I'm sure that I have forgotten a carpool today or who knows. I think people had clean clothes to go to school this morning. But in truth, I have an amazing husband, and my mom lives with us. Then I have two momma friends who just take such good care of my family when I'm traveling and working late. All these people really fill in the gaps so selflessly. I realize not all parents with demanding jobs have this and really do feel so grateful. But I don't really know how much juggling is going on, Chuck. We're all just doing the best we can.
Chuck Slemp:
Well, you make it look easy, like I said earlier. Thank you so much, Lacey, for sharing all of your insights and experiences with us today. It has been such a pleasure having you on the podcast, and I know that we can continue to talk forever. But unfortunately, we're out of time. Thanks again for joining us.
Lacey Mase:
Thanks, Chuck, for having me. It was great to be here with you.
Stephen Piepgrass:
Lacey and Chuck, I want to thank you again for joining me today. This has been a very interesting conversation, and I'm sure our listeners enjoyed it as much as I did. Thank you to our listeners for joining in. Remember to subscribe to this podcast through Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, or whatever platform you choose. We look forward to having you joining us next time.
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