CJ Griffin Discusses OPRA with Law360, “New Jersey Laws Attorneys Need to Know in 2024”

CJ Griffin, partner and director of the Justice Gary S. Stein Public Interest Center, was recently quoted in a Law360 article titled, “New Jersey Laws Attorneys Need to Know in 2024.” The article discusses relevant New Jersey case law that attorneys within the state should be familiar with in the second half of 2024.

A controversial new update to New Jersey's Open Public Records Act will allow public entities to sue people who request public records and also removes a prior provision of the law that shifted legal fees onto the government if a record requester won a case over not being given public documents.

CJ Griffin told Law360 that the new version of OPRA will only make what she said was an already difficult public records process more burdensome on the public.

Records requesters "face weeks- or months long delays for records that are supposed to be immediately available, they're bounced between agency to agency, or they are flat out denied access to records that should be public," Griffin said. "The new law will make it worse because it codifies all those hurdles and then takes away the fee shift that allowed the media to sue and gain access to records that were denied. Governor Murphy may want to pretend that the new bill won't have an impact on transparency, but that's gaslighting."

To read the full Law360 article, click here.