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Court authorizes limited outside counsel to assist with Public Information Act requests on pending criminal cases
Summary
Facing increased public-records requests tied to high-profile criminal matters, the court approved a limited engagement with Blaze and Hightower LLP (exempting the legal services from bidding) to assist prosecutors with Public Information Act responses on pending felony cases.
County officials told the court that a rising number of public information requests related to pending criminal matters has strained prosecutor and county attorney resources. The County Attorney's and District Attorney's offices proposed hiring outside counsel to handle complex open-records referrals tied to felony criminal cases.
Grant Blaze and Blaze & Hightower LLP were cited in the proposal as willing to take on these narrow, criminal-records matters; as the County Attorney's office explained, some criminal open-records issues must be submitted to the Texas Attorney General for opinion and can demand substantial staff time. The proposed agreement was limited in scope to pending criminal cases referred by the elected prosecutors.
The court approved an order exempting the limited legal services from the standard bidding process under Local Government Code Section 262.024 and authorized the judge to sign the letter agreement with Blaze and Hightower LLP; the motion carried unanimously.
Ending: The engagement is a trial arrangement intended to relieve prosecutorial workload on complex, pending criminal public-records requests; the court will review costs and usage during the budget process.
