Frohnmayer and Geller’s Harrang et al. law firm takes on RG over DA’s public records order

http://www.uomatters.com/2015/01/frohnmayers-harrang-et-al-law-firm-takes-on-rg-over-das-public-records-order.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Christian Wihtol has the story in the Register Guard, here. In a nutshell, Lane County DA Alex Gardner has ordered Eugene’s 4J School District to turn records related to the job performance of Superintendent Sheldon Berman over to the Register Guard. The school district doesn’t want to, so they’re paying Dave’s HLGR to fight the order in court. Interestingly HLGR’s case is against the RG, not against the DA. I’m not sure that makes sense, but it’s the law.

As it happens, former UO General Counsel and noted public records obstructionist Randy Geller now works for HLGR, while his wife,Jennifer Geller, serves on the school board. (She now works for the UO Law School). Presumably she recused herself from the decision to fight the DA’s order, and hire HLGR to do it.

We’ll have to wait until the Eugene School District releases HLGR’s invoices to see how much time (if any) Geller and former UO President and HLGR sabbaticalee Dave Frohnmayer are hitting up the taxpayers on this one, but given that Frohnayer helped write Oregon’s public records law as a first term state legislator (elected on a post-Watergate reform platform), there’s no doubt his expertise on how to subvert it should involve a significant emolument. Dave may now have blown past his previous billable hours trifecta:

1) Defending big tobacco against the state of Oregon in federal court, here.

2) Lobbying the Oregon legislature to let BP keep unclaimed class action damages, instead of using them to fund and expansion of legal aid for the poor, here. (Apparently he and Bill Gary did this w/o filing the required lobbying disclosure with the State in advance.)

3) Helping Mike “The University” Gottfredson bargain against the UO faculty, here.