In 1916, Garran was made the first Solicitor-General of Australia (the office was then known as Commonwealth Solicitor-General) by Billy Hughes, who had since become Prime Minister. The creation of the office and Garran's appointment to it was to some degree recognition of his existing role as Permanent Head of the Attorney-General's Department, in which Garran gave legal advice to several successive governments,[3] but it also represented a formal delegation of many of the powers and functions formerly exercised by the Attorney-General.[9]