Government Accountability & Oversight v. Division of Law & Public Safety, Office of the Attorney General

A New Jersey Superior Court ordered the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and the Division of Law, Department of Law & Public Safety, to produce an unredacted version of a retainer agreement between the defendants and a law firm retained as special counsel to the OAG in its climate change case against fossil fuel industry defendants and other litigation. The court rejected the defendants’ arguments that the redactions shielded material protected by the attorney client privilege and the work product doctrine. The court also found that the plaintiff was entitled to a reasonable attorney’s fee award under the Open Public Records Act.

An organization that submitted a New Jersey Open Public Records Act request to the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General filed a lawsuit seeking to compel production of unredacted copies of an agreement between the Attorney General and an outside law firm related to the law firm’s representation of the Attorney General in New Jersey’s climate change <a href="http://climatecasechart.com/case/platkin-v-exxon-mobil-corp/">lawsuit</a> against fossil fuel industry defendants. The organization asserted that the redactions were not appropriate and that the public had a right to know the terms of the agreement because the “promise of payment [to the law firm] is made in the name of protecting the public fisc, as is the case in defendants’ ‘climate’ lawsuit.”