The U.S. Department of Justice is planning to publish once-confidential guidance memos that address disclosure of U.S. lobbying work for foreign companies and governments, shedding light on a federal law that has found new prominence as part of the special counsel's case against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

At least one law firm, Covington & Burling, said it had received a letter from the Justice Department announcing the plan to post online advisory opinions issued since January 2010. The advisory opinions reflect the Justice Department's interpretation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, which in certain instances requires lobby shops and other firms to reveal their advocacy for a foreign entity.

The names of the parties who requested the advisory opinions will be redacted, said Covington partner Robert Kelner, a political law specialist and defense lawyer for Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security adviser. Kelner said law firms request opinions when a client wants more assurance about being able to conduct certain activities in the United States without registering.

The release of the memos is expected to provide more clarity to the circumstances under which the Justice Department determined it was necessary for a firm or individual to register as a foreign agent. The disclosure requirements for lobbying for foreign clients are more onerous than those for lobbyists who provide services to domestic clients.

“I think this could make a big difference in how firms advise clients on FARA compliance because, up until now, we've all had to do a great deal of reading the tea leaves rather than having actual legal precedents to look at,” Kelner said. “The thing about having precedents is it allows you to not only understand the department's position but, more importantly. to hold them to it.”

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment Thursday.

Special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecution of Manafort has put a new spotlight on FARA's registration and disclosure requirements. In October, Manafort was charged with failing to register as foreign agents in connection with his lobbying work for the Russia-backed government of Ukraine. He has pleaded not guilty.

The small circle of Washington lawyers who specialize in foreign lobbying has long protested that the Justice Department would not more widely share advisory memos. Some lawyers have complained that the Justice Department's issuance of guidance documents only to the party that sought the opinion was effectively creating “secret law.”

For years, lawyers with FARA expertise would treat advisory opinions somewhat like baseball cards, privately exchanging pearls of wisdom from their respective collections as a matter of professional courtesy. The public release of the advisory opinions “will eliminate the tradition of samizdat in FARA practice,” Kelner said in an interview, using the Soviet-era term for the clandestine copying and sharing of literature banned by the state.

Several lawyers contacted by The National Law Journal said they had not received letters from the Justice Department informing them of an upcoming release of advisory opinions, although some said they were aware of such plans. Covington received a letter from the Justice Department because it has received at least one advisory opinion that will be released with redactions.

Ronald Meltzer, senior counsel at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, welcomed the upcoming release. The Justice Department unit focused on foreign lobbying, housed within the National Security Division, has lagged behind other government agencies in its willingness to communicate guidance, he said.

“The DOJ FARA unit is behind the pace of other agencies when it comes to doing that. That may have been fine in the past when FARA was much less prominent than it is now as an area of concern or potential enforcement risk,” Meltzer said. “Now that DOJ has sort of stepped up what it does and intends to do on the FARA front, it really is incumbent on them to put out more guidance.”

Manafort's ongoing prosecution in Washington and Virginia federal courts coincides with a more aggressive approach by the Justice Department to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act, an 80-year-old law that was adopted to combat a Nazi propaganda campaign in the United States.

Earlier this month, Nisar Ahmed Chaudhry, a Pakistani national residing in Maryland, pleaded guilty to charges he failed to register as a foreign agent of Pakistan.

The toughened approach follows a 2016 report by the Justice Department's inspector general that criticized the department for lacking a comprehensive enforcement strategy to penalize those who fail to register as foreign agents.

It is unclear when the advisory opinions will be released and how many of such documents exist.

Kelner cautioned that anyone looking to make decisions based on the advisory opinions will need to be careful, as the Justice Department's determinations are specific to individual sets of circumstances. “Whether others can rely on [an advisory opinion] is a dicier proposition and depends on how identical the other person's factual situation is to the requestor,” he said.

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