A vigorous practice awaits whoever moves into the Washington state attorney general’s office in January.

A little too vigorous from the taxpayers’ point of view.

In recent years, lawsuits against the state’s mammoth Department of Social and Health Services have cost millions of dollars. Defending the state in such cases isn’t nearly as important as giving DSHS and other state agencies the necessary legal counsel to lower their liability in the first place.

It’s called risk management and it’s the kind of professional advice that corporate lawyers give their clients to help them avoid making mistakes that lead to litigation. Corporate lawyers like King County Councilman Rob McKenna, who was an attorney in Perkins Coie, one of the state’s premier law firms, from 1988 to 1995.

That’s only part of the experience base that makes McKenna a solid choice to become attorney general of Washington.

Both Republican McKenna and his Democratic rival, Deborah Senn, are smart, seasoned and skilled attorneys. Senn is well known as a former state insurance commissioner, a role she says gives her critical experience at running a state agency. However, her two terms were marked by sometimes stormy battles in which her passion to be known as a strong consumer advocate resulted in regulatory overreach. So much so that the number of insurance providers doing business in the state declined and consumers’ choices became restricted.

McKenna has a different career profile, but one that leaves him equally qualified to take over from Attorney General Christine Gregoire, who is stepping down to run for governor. After being elected to the King County Council in 1995, McKenna served well enough that he ran unopposed in 1999 and again in 2003.

On the council he helped oversee a 125-employee department and, more significant in terms of the responsibilities that would go with being attorney general, he helped write and execute a $3 billion budget.

McKenna has a reputation as a tight-fisted official who will address an agenda of important issues that include aggressive enforcement of the Public Disclosure Act, a determined but realistic approach to consumer protection, and a firm commitment to public safety. Law enforcement agencies around the state have endorsed him.

McKenna has the tools that an attorney general needs to bring capable administration, prudent fiscal stewardship and dedicated legal professionalism to an agency that needs those qualities far more than it needs the ideological zeal Senn exhibited at the helm of the insurance commissioner’s office.