{"id":7885,"date":"2017-04-27T13:13:13","date_gmt":"2017-04-27T17:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7885"},"modified":"2017-04-27T13:13:13","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T17:13:13","slug":"law-firm-client-requesting-county-email-lists-identified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7885","title":{"rendered":"Law Firm Client Requesting County Email Lists Identified"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Earlier today, we published a piece<\/a> noting that an associate with the law firm Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock, P.C.<\/a> requested the county\u2019s email lists.\u00a0 The post contained an important error: the firm did in fact identify its client in its request letter to the county.\u00a0\u00a0 Law firm member Joseph E. Sandler wrote the following to us this morning:<\/p>\n

Your piece in Seventh State regarding our law firm\u2019s Public Information Act request for e-mail records, submitted to Montgomery County, is flat-out inaccurate.\u00a0 County law requires that a lawyer submitting such a request on behalf of a client disclose the client\u2014Empower Montgomery– and Ms. Krupke did so, in her letter, of copy of which is attached.\u00a0 The County website did not list the client but Ms. Krupke\u2019s letter did disclose it.\u00a0 Apparently you didn\u2019t bother to check the letter itself.\u00a0 Please run an immediate retraction\/correction.\u00a0 Thanks for your prompt attention to this matter.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/em><\/p>\n

Joe Sandler<\/em><\/p>\n

When your author requested that Mr. Sandler cite the section of state or county law requiring attorney disclosure of clients when making Public Information Act (PIA) requests, he replied, \u201cOur view is that we were required, by the rules of legal ethics, to disclose the client in these circumstances.\u00a0 We do not believe it is required by state or county law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sandler\u2019s firm did in fact disclose the client in their PIA request.\u00a0 The request itself did not appear on the county\u2019s website.\u00a0 We were wrong in implying that the firm intended to protect the identity of the client.\u00a0 We reprint the request letter below.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Empower Montgomery<\/a>, the client requesting the emails, is an advocacy group whose co-founders are real estate executives Charlie Nulsen<\/a> and Chris Bruch<\/a>, former health care executive David Blair<\/a> and former County Council Member Steve Silverman<\/a>.\u00a0 Blair has been mentioned as a possible candidate for County Executive twice in the Washington<\/a> Post<\/a>.\u00a0 Silverman was once the Director of the county\u2019s Department of Economic Development and is now a registered lobbyist with both the county and the state.<\/p>\n

We apologize to Mr. Sandler and his firm for implying in our original post that their Public Information Act request was intended to conceal the identity of their client.\u00a0 That was clearly wrong.\u00a0 Even so, the news that a rumored potential County Executive candidate and a registered lobbyist with business before the county are now in possession of the county\u2019s email lists is interesting in and of itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Earlier today, we published a piece noting that an associate with the law firm Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock, P.C. requested the county\u2019s email lists.\u00a0 The post contained an important error: the firm did in fact identify its client in its request letter to the county.\u00a0\u00a0 Law firm member Joseph E. … Continue reading Law Firm Client Requesting County Email Lists Identified<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,283],"tags":[1545,1938,1935,1937,1934,1936,973],"class_list":["post-7885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-steve-silverman","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-david-blair","tag-email-lists","tag-empower-montgomery","tag-public-information-act","tag-sandler-reiff","tag-steve-silverman-2"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-23b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7885"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7887,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7885\/revisions\/7887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}