universal praise for her brief tenure as new york attorney general i mean aside from the defendants whose door she beat down.nei barbara underwood took that job under the weirdest and highest pressure circumstances. but she was nails. she was great. she was super effective.gr among other things she proved, she showed, she lived that for sure new york was ready for a woman to be attorney general of the state for the first time ever. barbara underwood took over.evun she held down the fort after the schneiderman scandal. in the next election it was letitia james, tish james who ran for the job outright and ran by a mile. she won by a more than 25-point landslide. underwood had been appointed to the job in the immediate wake of schneiderman s scandal. that made her technically the first acting attorney general of the state of new york. tish james was the first woman ever elected to the gig.