Longtime Deputy Idaho Attorney General Clive Strong to retire

BOISE - Longtime Deputy Idaho Attorney General Clive Strong, chief of the attorney general’s natural resources division for the past 32 years, is retiring on Friday.

Strong, who served under four attorneys general and six governors, was the state’s lead attorney in the biggest legal case in Idaho history, the Snake River Water Rights Adjudication, and has argued numerous cases before the Idaho Supreme Court and two before the U.S. Supreme Court.

He ran unsuccessfully for the Idaho Supreme Court in 2016, and was a finalist for an appointment to the high court in 2007. Strong, 64, holds both bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Idaho. He was recognized by the American Bar Association in 2014 as its environment, energy and resources government attorney of the year.

Former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Jim Jones, who hired Strong in 1983 when Jones was the state’s attorney general, said, “Clive Strong has done more good for the state than practically any other public servant.”