Attorney General proposes new restrictions, procedures for OPRA requests

The New Jersey Attorney General’s Office is seeking to place additional investigative and legal records beyond the public’s reach under proposed changes to the Department of Law and Public Safety’s public records regulations.

The proposal would exempt records that could reveal a nonpublic criminal or civil investigation, allowing the department to withhold documents because releasing them could disclose the existence of such an investigation.

“The proposed amendments would increase public confidence in criminal and civil investigations by allowing the Attorney General to conduct investigations free from public influence and without being forced to disclose the existence of investigations where no wrongdoing has yet been determined,” the department said in its social impact statement.

The proposed regulations would also shield training materials prepared by the Attorney General’s Advocacy Institute for deputy and assistant attorneys general, county prosecutors and other government lawyers.

That provision follows a 2025 dispute in which the Attorney General’s Office rejected an OPRA request from the New Jersey Globe for materials and presentations from an October 8 program titled “Election Training: Introduction to Election Duty.”

The training was provided to Division of Law attorneys assigned to represent county boards of election and county superintendents of election during early voting and on Election Day.

In a December 3 letter, the attorney general’s office said the materials were exclusively intended for attorneys representing county election officials and were not available to other Division of Law attorneys or the public.

“While transparency in government is important, so are the ability of attorneys to represent their clients effectively and the ability of government officials to have frank discussions in reaching decisions,” the attorney general’s office stated.

The attorney general’s office argued that the election materials were protected by attorney-client privilege, attorney work-product privilege and deliberative-process privilege.  They said they were not policy documents or instructions governing the administration of elections.

“The materials you request are classic attorney work product: they are made by attorneys, for attorneys, for the purpose of representing clients in potential and anticipated litigation,” the AG’s office said.

The proposed regulation would go further by expressly designating AGAI training materials as confidential. That would give the department a clearer, categorical basis for denying future requests without relying exclusively on the contents of each document.  The department said the exemption would “support effective training and professional development of government attorneys, thereby enhancing the quality of legal representation provided to the public.”

The new regulation, if approved, would strengthen the attorney general’s office’s defense against future lawsuits under the Open Public Records Act, reduce the need to establish privilege document by document, and potentially cover materials that might not independently qualify as attorney work product, attorney-client communications or deliberative material.

The proposal would also require requesters to disclose whether they are seeking records in connection with litigation. The department would not be required to fulfill requests for documents already subject to a court order or pending discovery request.

Commercial requesters would face a 14-business-day response period, compared with seven business days for most requests.

Other provisions would allow OPRA requests to be submitted by email. The department said small businesses “would benefit from being able to submit OPRA requests by email.”