Matter of Appellate Advocates v New York State Dept. of Corr. & Community Supervision (2022 NY Slip Op 01354) Matter of Appellate Advocates v New York State Dept. of Corr. & Community Supervision 2022 NY Slip Op 01354 Decided on March 3, 2022 Appellate Division, Third Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports. Decided and Entered:March 3, 2022 531737 [*1]In the Matter of Appellate Advocates, Appellant, vNew York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Respondent. Calendar Date:November 18, 2021 Before:Egan Jr., J.P. (vouched in), Lynch, Aarons, Pritzker and Reynolds Fitzgerald, JJ. Lincoln Square Legal Services, Inc., New York City (Ron Lazebnik of counsel), for appellant. Letitia James, Attorney General, Albany (Frank Brady of counsel), for respondent. Civil Rights and Transparency Clinic, Buffalo (Michael F. Higgins of counsel), for Reinvent Albany and another, amici curiae. Aarons, J. Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court (Ryba, J.), entered June 26, 2020 in Albany County, which dismissed petitioner's application, in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, to review a determination of respondent partially denying petitioner's Freedom of Information Law request. Petitioner made a request under the Freedom of Information Law (see Public Officer Law art 6) seeking documentation related to how the Board of Parole determined applications for parole release. As relevant here, petitioner sought from respondent "[a]ny and all records, documents, and files referencing or relating to Board of Parole training, including but not limited to training policies, procedures, manuals, handbooks, and outlines received or created by Board of Parole commissioners, their employees, staff members, and agents." In response, respondent provided some training materials but also withheld certain documents as protected by the attorney-client privilege. Petitioner administratively appealed and respondent, in support of withholding documents from disclosure, argued that the sought documents were protected as attorney-client communications. Respondent also relied on the intra-agency exemption. After the administrative appeal was denied, petitioner commenced this CPLR article 78 proceeding seeking full compliance with its Freedom of Information Law request. Before respondent joined issue, the parties reached a settlement as to the disclosure of some documents. Respondent then answered and submitted 11 documents to Supreme Court for an in camera review, along with a privilege log. Following the review, the court found that these 11 documents were exempt from disclosure. Petitioner appeals. Petitioner argues that Supreme Court erred in determining that the documents at issue were exempt from disclosure under the attorney-client privilege. Having reviewed the documents that were submitted in camera, we disagree. "[T]he attorney-client privilege protects communications between an attorney and his or her client that convey facts relevant to a legal issue under consideration, even if the information contained in the communication is not privileged" (Matter of Gilbert v Office of the Governor of the State of N.Y., 170 AD3d 1404, 1405-1406 [2019]). Regarding the minor offenders memoranda, these documents, as noted in the affirmation of the …
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