FOIA Bootcamp Offers Insight on Using Public Records Laws
Yale Law School’s Media Freedom and Information Access (MFIA) Clinic hosted its annual Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Bootcamp on Feb. 24 as a hybrid event. Although the event was moved from the Law School building to Zoom because of a snowstorm, the event reached a larger audience than past years and produced a lively discussion.
The Bootcamp brought together students, journalists, lawyers, and members of the public for a practical conversation about how to use public records laws effectively. Moderated by Stacy Livingston, the Craig Newmark Fellow at the MFIA clinic, this year’s event featured complementary perspectives on FOIA from investigative reporter Joshua Eaton of Hearst Connecticut Media Group and Sarah S. Normand, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who spent more than 25 years litigating and supervising FOIA cases on behalf of federal agencies. Their combined expertise gave attendees a view of FOIA from both the requester’s side and the government’s side.
In her opening remarks, Livingston described MFIA’s mission as defending and advancing “government transparency, democracy, and the freedoms of speech and the press,” and she framed FOIA as one of the key tools for securing public access to information. Normand then began with an overview of the law, describing the statute’s overall purpose “to keep citizens informed about what their government is up to,” while also protecting information the government has a legitimate reason to keep confidential.
Normand emphasized that FOIA does not apply to Congress, the courts, or the president’s closest advisory offices, and she walked participants through the basic legal concepts that shape the process, including what counts as an “agency record” and why requesters must describe records with reasonable specificity.
One major theme of the workshop was the importance of precision. Normand warned against vague formulations such as asking for “all records relating to” a topic, since those kinds of requests can be difficult for agency staff to process and can slow the response considerably. Instead, she urged attendees to think carefully about how a records officer would understand the request and to “be as specific and as reasonable in framing a request as you possibly can.”
Eaton echoed that point in more practical terms, explaining that a requester is often effectively asking the FOIA office to act “like you’re asking a librarian” to retrieve something from the archives.
Eaton focused on the practical side of making requests work. He urged attendees to think of FOIA as “step two or even step three. It’s not step one,” encouraging them to do background reporting before filing. One of the hardest things, he said, is making the shift from “requesting topics” to “requesting records.” He advised people to write in clear, accessible language, saying he prefers “human readable requests, not lawyer readable requests,” and to keep requests “short, light, clear, to the point.”
Throughout the session, Eaton illustrated those lessons with examples from his own reporting. He walked attendees through a story involving Pentagon gun background check records, showing how one document can lead to another if a reporter knows what to ask for. He also described hearing Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas say he had taken handwritten notes after receiving inaccurate information about the Uvalde school shooting response and immediately thinking, “That’s a record.” For Eaton, that instinct reflected what he called a “document state of mind”: the habit of listening for records that may exist behind public statements, statistics, and official claims.
The speakers also addressed what happens after a request is filed. Normand explained that although agencies are supposed to make an initial determination within 20 business days, delays are common, and Eaton noted that federal agencies often sort requests into “simple” and “complex” tracks. That is one reason, he said, that narrow and specific requests matter so much: a request placed on the simple track may move a lot faster.
Normand then outlined the role of expedited processing, fee waivers, administrative appeals, and litigation, emphasizing that lawsuits can become an important enforcement mechanism when agencies stall or overwithhold.
Together, Eaton and Normand demystified FOIA while making clear that success often depends on patience, strategy, and a willingness to refine or fight for a request. Repeatedly, they returned to the same core lessons: know what records you are looking for, understand how an agency is likely to keep them, and be prepared to negotiate, narrow, appeal, or litigate when necessary.
Even though weather forced the bootcamp online, the event still delivered a detailed, accessible guide to drafting requests, working with agencies, and using public records law as a tool for accountability.
The MFIA Clinic at Yale Law School is dedicated to increasing government transparency, defending the essential work of news gatherers, and protecting freedom of expression through impact litigation, direct legal services, and policy work.
