The consultative function performed by the State Advocacy, essentially governed by art. 13 Royal Decree 30.10.1933 n. 1611, constitutes within the framework of the Institute's activity the form of complementary technical assistance to the procedural representation and defense in court of the Administrations sponsored by the same, including all interventions and initiatives not attributable to legal protection in the strict sense; it translates into collaboration with a public institution for the purpose of solving technical-legal and interpretative issues, suitable for illuminating in advance and corroborating the body or entity assisted in carrying out its administrative action on the level of legality and operational correctness give subjects. This form of assistance can benefit the entities admitted to the tax defense in the litigation site (art.47 RD 30.10.1933 n. 1611) and in any case unlike the latter (see art. provided under particular conditions to employees of entities sponsored by the State Attorney's Office) it is never payable in favor of individuals.

The competence to issue opinions is entrusted to the responsible office with territorial jurisdiction in relation to the jurisdiction of the applicant body.

The consultative activity of the State Attorney's Office, considered in itself, expresses a particular form of collaboration between the technical-legal body and the sponsored bodies only in principle comparable to the relationship between a lawyer of the free forum as legal consultant and client; this collaboration is characterized by the independence, neutrality and general competence of the consultant body as well as by the confidentiality for the purposes of access pursuant to art. 7 l. 241/90, and is aimed at the best extrajudicial care of general public interests and ultimately at the protection of the patrimonial and non-patrimonial sphere of the entity, up to acquiring the role of collaboration in the government action in the cases of preparation of draft laws and regulatory texts. The opinion of the State Attorney's Office is normally optional , as its adoption cannot be separated from the initiative of the active administrative body. In various legislative hypotheses it is provided as mandatory, that is to say that it is required to be acquired and not left to the discretion of the administration, by means of a specific sub-procedure as part of the preparation of the final deed of the process pertaining to the consulting body. In hindsight, the traditional differentiation between dogmatic classifications of the optional and obligatory nature of opinions would not seem to fit the peculiarities of the nature and institutional role of the State Attorney's Office and only concerns the phase of the initiative by the body interested in the consultation, the the issue of which is due to the State Attorney's Office; therefore it is operationally reduced to the exclusion, in the second case, of the assessment by the assisted administration on the advisability of promoting the acquisition of the advice of the sponsoring body on the legal question.

Without prejudice to the possibility for the consulting administration to disregard the opinion given by the State Attorney's Office, whether it is optional or mandatory, it being understood that for peaceful recognition, including jurisprudential, the orientation contrary to that expressed by the legal consultative body commits in a manner particular the entity on the motivational level, requiring adequate justification of the dissent in the final administrative act of the auxiliary procedure. In the context of the state system, however, the State Attorney's Office is supported by the Council of State in the ownership of the advisory assistance function of the administrations, in terms of alternatives or even competition.