Richmond Billed Over $130,000 by Private Law Firm in FOIA Whistleblower Case
Bills mount as Richmond farms out FOIA whistleblower case to multinational law firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C.
Last year, the City of Richmond’s former FOIA Officer, Connie Clay, filed a whistleblower complaint in Richmond Circuit Court. As Em Holter reported at the time in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:
Richmond’s former Freedom of Information Act officer Connie Clay filed a whistleblower complaint against the city in Circuit Court on Friday morning.
The 17-page complaint, which seeks $250,000 in damages, claims Clay was unlawfully terminated by Petula Burks, the city’s strategic communications and civic engagement officer, on Jan. 19 for “refusing to engage in illegal and unethical activities in violation of FOIA.”
The case has creeped along over the past year, and as Samuel Parker reported last October in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Clay has accused the City of stalling:
In the six months since it was filed, city officials have declined to set a date for a court hearing on their own motion, Clay told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. And though Clay’s attorney, Sarah Robb, was able to secure a Nov. 19 hearing on the court’s docket, city attorneys would not agree to it.
Clay said officials told her that they wanted to set a date available to “numerous attorneys” — despite the fact that they had at least one available. Asked whether officials had proposed alternative potential hearing dates, Clay said they had not to her knowledge.
“It appears to me that the (Mayor Levar) Stoney administration is deliberately delaying the case and leaving it to the next administration to address,” Clay said.
In a hearing last week, Richmond Circuit Court Judge Claire Cardwell set all parties straight. As Sarah Vogelsong reported in The Richmonder:
On Tuesday, Cardwell told the attorneys she had asked for that day’s hearing because of the amount of time court staff was spending sorting out the parties’ various motions.
Besides referring the parties to dispute resolution proceedings and setting a time when they would hold a phone call to attempt to work out their disagreements, the judge blocked off a six-hour window on May 27 to settle a range of motions on what documents each should be required to produce, which should be kept confidential and whether the medical records should be able to be subpoenaed.
“We’re going home at 5,” she cautioned the attorneys, reminding them, “You all have a trial date in September.”
Over $130,000 in Legal Bills
Mike Sarahan, a local advocate who reportedly used to work at the City Attorney’s office, has been following Connie Clay’s case closely. Those who follow Richmond politics closely may know Sarahan from his interrogation of the Stoney Administration’s enhancements - not removal - of a confederate marker in the city.
On April 20, 2025, Sarahan sent a FOIA request to Julia Holmes, the City’s newest FOIA Manager, requesting “records showing the amounts charged to the City by Ogletree Deakins, as fees and expenses incurred in connection with its representation in the pending matter, Clay v. City of Richmond, et al., Case No. CL24000929-00.”
On April 28, 2025, Holmes sent the following eight pages of billing records to Sarahan, noting that “ABA numbers and account numbers” were being redacted “under Va. Code Sec. 2.2-3705.1(13).”
As you can see in the images below, the City’s been billed over $130,000 so far by multinational law firm Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C.
And the case hasn’t even gone to trial yet.
You can download the billing records here:
