Terry Mutchler

November 15, 2023 | The Legal Intelligencer

Despite my respect for the Office of Open Records, it made a huge mistake last month, with implications far beyond whether records are public. The OOR held that the Pennsylvania opioid misuse and addiction abatement trust is not subject to the records-access law and that it did not have jurisdiction over the entity.

By Terry Mutchler

6 minute read

July 13, 2021 | The Legal Intelligencer

Even the strongest open government advocates tend to look the other way in discomfort when it comes to a very real unintended consequence of this very good law: serial requesters.

By Terry Mutchler

7 minute read

April 19, 2021 | The Legal Intelligencer

If your company has a government contract, your corporate records are at great risk to your competitors or anyone that asks for them. Often, your team never even knows of the transaction.

By Terry Mutchler

6 minute read

July 11, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

Taking some time to do this during the summer, when agency work tends to slow, will reduce headaches for both citizens and agency officials when responding to requests for public records throughout the year.

By Terry Mutchler

6 minute read

May 30, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

There is a dark aspect of obtaining public records that nobody wants to talk about, but yet it is a silent menace eating away at the healthy vibrant open government laws that enables citizens to obtain information about their government.

By Terry Mutchler

9 minute read

April 18, 2019 | The Legal Intelligencer

Congress endowed citizens with a statutory right, an enforceable right, of access to records housed within the executive branch of government. FOIA provides the public with the right to request access to records from any federal agencies.

By Terry Mutchler

5 minute read

November 16, 2018 | The Legal Intelligencer

Requestors sometimes file requests only to be told the requests for public records “aren't specific enough,” or the requests “are too burdensome,” or they are denied without proper legal explanation.

By Terry Mutchler

9 minute read

October 18, 2018 | The Legal Intelligencer

Consider these national disparities in public records requests. A Pennsylvania citizen requests a criminal investigative record under its state's Right to Know Law and is denied because those records, by law, are off limits. Even if the records were 100 years old and all parties were deceased, these records are off the table in perpetuity.

By Terry Mutchler

8 minute read

August 30, 2018 | The Legal Intelligencer

Raw sugar, coconuts and rubber are the little-known originators of the Freedom of Information Act, the federal law that governs the release of public records.

By Terry Mutchler

6 minute read

July 13, 2018 | The Legal Intelligencer

This column contains both tips and warnings related to records-access laws and ensuring that lawyers and journalists not only read them, but maximize the use of these laws.

By Terry Mutchler

7 minute read