FOIA and “First Party” Disclosure Requests: Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs v. DOJ
By Bernard Bell, Yale J. on Reg., Notice & Comment, Aug. 4, 2025
In Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs v. DOJ, Dkt. No. 24-5127, ─ F.4th ─, 2025 WL 2088557 (D.C. Cir. July 27, 2025), the D.C. Circuit waded into the issues of records disclosure in response to first-party FOIA requests. Plaintiff Lawyers’ Committee represents various individual incarcerated in the federal prison system. According to the complaint filed in the case, the Lawyers’ Committee “routinely represents individuals incarcerated in the BOP [Bureau of Prisons] in cases to uphold their civil and constitutional rights.” ¶2. Timely access to “individual clients’ records” as well as “BOP-wide data related to compliance with the civil and constitutional rights” of the imprisoned is crucial to such an endeavor.
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