Jack LaSota

Career

Jack LaSota is a member of the Arizona State Bar and has had a legal career. He has drafted statutes, including telephonic search warrant and electronic eavesdropping laws, many of which are still on the books. He also spent three years at the Arizona State University College of Law as a faculty member and assistant dean, during which tenure his principal role was to draft and circulate nationwide to over 500 agencies pioneering Model Rules for Law Enforcement. In his nearly four years with the Office of Attorney General, he edited and authored hundreds of attorney general opinions. More recently, he was a charter member of the Lottery Commission, and concluded over ten years' service as a charter member of the Governor’s Regulatory Review Council. In the latter role, he reviewed thousands of draft rules for clarity, conciseness, economic impact, and legal authority. He spent six years in the 1980s as an adjunct professor of law at ASU College of Law, teaching State and Local Government.

Attorney General

After Bruce Babbitt succeeded Wesley Bolin as governor, he appointed LaSota to replace him as Attorney General. Members of the Arizona senate, led by Senate President Ed Sawyer, sued LaSota arguing he was statutorily barred from serving. The senators alleged LaSota was barred by A.R.S. 41-191, which stated that “(t)he attorney general shall have been for not less than five years immediately preceding the date of taking office a practicing attorney before the supreme court of the state.” While LaSota was employed at the Arizona State University School of Law his bar membership lapsed to retired status and, as a retired lawyer, he could not practice law or hold himself out as eligible to do so. The court voided the statute.