You Had to Hire a Lawyer to Get Your Public Records — Does the Government Pay for That?

You ask a government office for records you're entitled to see. Weeks pass. Some pages come back blacked out. Some don't come back at all, with a vague explanation about privacy or confidentiality. Nothing moves — until you hire a lawyer, and a single letter on law-firm letterhead does what months of your own requests could not: the records start showing up.

It feels like a win. But did you actually win anything a court would recognize? If the records finally arrived before you ever filed a lawsuit, can you still recover what it cost you to get them? And what happens when one of the things you asked for — an audio recording, say — doesn't arrive at all, because the agency says it no longer exists?

On September 18, 2026, the Arizona Supreme Court answered versions of all three questions, in a case that will shape how public records disputes with government agencies play out across the state.

A recording, and years of getting the runaround

A tenured English professor at the University of Arizona served on a faculty committee at the University. He came to believe some colleagues weren't following a state constitutional requirement limiting the role race and sex could play in hiring decisions. Between 2018 and 2020, he submitted a series of public records requests trying to find out more — survey data used in hiring decisions, and records about how certain positions were filled.

The University's response was inconsistent: some records came back complete, others redacted or withheld outright, citing confidentiality or privacy. One request — for an audio recording of an October 2019 committee meeting — was refused outright; the University said it would use the tape only to write up meeting minutes and would delete it "shortly after." He asked to keep a copy; the University offered instead to let him listen without taking a copy home. He declined, and asked again for the recording itself.

On October 16, 2020, his lawyer sent a formal demand letter to the Arizona Board of Regents. Almost immediately, the University's posture changed. Internally, it acknowledged that withholding some records had been wrong, and it began producing additional records. Extensive records arrived before suit. Abraham filed his lawsuit in September 2021; on November 29, 2021, the University produced more than 1,700 additional pages, including survey results and search-committee records. The recording, though, was gone. The University said it no longer existed.

Two obstacles on the way to court

When the professor eventually sued under Arizona's Public Records Law, he ran into two problems that will sound familiar to anyone who has had to fight a government agency for information.

First, the recording. Because his own complaint alleged that the University had destroyed the recording, the lower courts accepted that allegation as true for purposes of dismissal — and reasoned there was nothing left to order the University to do about a document that no longer existed. That claim was dismissed before trial.

Second, the fees. He had spent money on a lawyer specifically because the University wasn't cooperating — and once he did, the University started complying. But by the time he filed suit, most of what he wanted had already arrived. The trial court read Arizona's public records law to allow fee awards only to a party who "substantially prevailed" in an "action" — an actual lawsuit — and reasoned that records produced before filing couldn't count toward that. He got much of what he asked for. He got none of what it cost him to get it.

What the Court decided

The Arizona Supreme Court reversed on both points, and added a third holding about how closely a judge must scrutinize an agency's reasons for withholding records.

Destroying a requested record is itself a denial of the request. The Court called this "axiomatic": destroying a requested public record denies access to it. Whether that denial is wrongful, and what remedy is available, are separate questions. Here, the University had a duty to preserve the recording after receiving the request, and the Court concluded that destroying it was wrongful. The professor had been offered a chance to listen, but he was entitled to a copy, not just a hearing.

That holding came with a real limit, though. Because he hadn't filed a separate notice required before seeking money damages from a public agency, he still couldn't recover damages over the recording itself. What he was entitled to was narrower but still meaningful: a court ruling that the University had, in fact, violated his rights — a finding that feeds directly into the next question.

Records handed over before a lawsuit is filed can still count toward whether you "substantially prevailed." The Court agreed you can only recover fees actually incurred in a lawsuit — you can't bill an agency for the demand letter your lawyer sent before you sued. But whether you qualify for those fees at all depends on how the whole dispute went, not just what happened after the complaint was filed. If an agency was stonewalling a legitimate request and only produced records once a lawyer got involved, that counts as part of the requester's overall success — even if most of the paperwork arrived before the lawsuit did.

A judge, not the agency, has the final say — on every document. The Court also clarified that when a trial court reviews an agency's decision to withhold or redact a record, it must decide the question independently, from scratch, rather than checking whether the agency's call was merely reasonable — both for the broad legal question and for how it plays out document by document.

Why the Court drew the line there

The Court was candid about what was at stake. If pre-lawsuit compliance never counted, an agency could stall a legitimate request until just before a lawsuit was filed, hand everything over and walk away without paying a cent — leaving the requester to absorb the cost of getting what the law already entitled them to. "Public entities," the Court wrote, "lack a financial incentive to fully and promptly comply with public records requests absent the threat of attorney fees."

At the same time, the Court didn't pretend its answer solved everything. It acknowledged that people who can't afford a lawyer or a lawsuit at all may still be left without recourse — and said plainly that fixing that is a job for the Legislature, not the courts.

What the Court did not decide

The Court answered legal questions; it didn't resolve the professor's case. The opinion left undecided whether he actually "substantially prevailed" and whether to award fees, and in what amount. It directed the trial court to make those decisions on remand, applying the standard the Supreme Court just laid out; even after finding substantial success, the court retains discretion over a fee award. Whether the remaining withheld or redacted documents should have been disclosed likewise goes back for a fresh, independent review.

What does this decision teach us?

• Getting stonewalled until you lawyer up doesn't erase your case for fees. A government agency's late compliance can still count as part of your overall success, even if most of it happened before you filed suit.
• The fee provision still requires a lawsuit. The Court explained that an award under this provision is limited to fees and legal costs incurred in the action — pre-litigation legal work is not reimbursed under it.
• Destroying the record you asked for is not the end of the story. It is a denial of the request that can still be adjudicated. Whether it was wrongful and what relief is available are separate questions. Here, the Court concluded that the University wrongfully destroyed Abraham's recording and restored his claim for a judicial determination of the violation.
• The presumption favors disclosure. Judges must make their own independent call on whether a record is truly exempt from disclosure — not defer to the agency that's trying to keep it from you.
• A legal win and a finished case aren't the same thing. The Supreme Court settled the rules; the opinion left the trial court to decide whether to award fees and what else the University must hand over.