Court rules OCA must disclose internal judicial memos
/
The Appellate Division, First Department, ruled the Office of Court Administration must disclose 22 documents it previously argued were protected by attorney-client privilege. Photo by ajay_suresh/Wikimedia Commons
By Noah Powelson
The state must disclose all memos it sends to judges about how to interpret the law after an appellate court ruled against the Office of Court Administration’s contention that the memos were protected from the public.
The unanimous decision by the Appellate Division, First Department, affirmed a previous state Supreme Court ruling made in response to a lawsuit against the state’s Office of Court Administration. The lawsuit, filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union in 2021, claimed OCA improperly denied the organization’s Freedom of Information Law requests for memos the court’s leaders send to judges.
The Court of Appeals had previously weighed in on the matter in October 2025 and said OCA had wrongly denied the FOIL requests but added that OCA could argue attorney-client privilege protected certain memos on a case-by-case basis.
Afterward, OCA submitted 22 documents to the court they argued were protected by attorney-client privilege and should not be released.
But on Tuesday, a panel of associate justices found OCA failed to demonstrate how that privilege applies to these documents.
“On this record OCA has not demonstrated the existence of an attorney-client relationship between Counsel’s Office and all UCS judges that would protect the submitted documents,” the decision reads. “OCA has provided no additional evidence or authority supporting its organizational client theory."
The ruling was praised by NYCLU Supervising Attorney Daniel Lambright, who said it’s “time for OCA to finally do the right thing and turn over the memos.”
“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that the public deserves to understand how our judicial system operates, and what goes into judges’ decision-making,” Lambright said. “Every day, judges make decisions that can dramatically impact New Yorkers’ rights, especially within vulnerable communities. New York’s judicial system is strongest when it is transparent, accountable, and responsive to the public.”
Al Baker, an OCA spokesperson, said they are reviewing the First Department's decision.
The legal battle between OCA and the NYCLU began in 2021, when an internal OCA memo was leaked to the nonprofit news outlet New York Focus. The memo instructed judges to narrowly apply a recent ruling, which intended to prevent people from becoming homeless or separated from their families during their criminal cases through orders of protection.
The NYCLU then filed a records request for the memo, which OCA denied. The NYCLU then sued for the documents.
The case went back and forth in the courts, initially having part of the FOIL request granted by a Supreme Court judge before the ruling was overturned by the Appellate Division.
The lawsuit came to a head before the Court of Appeals in 2025, which reversed the appellate court’s decision and said OCA was not “entitled to a blanket exemption for all potentially responsive documents.”
