HINSDALE, IL – Hinsdale High School District 86 spent thousands of dollars in the fight to keep a message secret in a billing dispute with its former lawyer.
On Tuesday, the attorney general found the district broke the state's open records law.
In the spring, the district denied Patch's request for an email attachment from its former law firm, Chicago-based Robbins Schwartz. The email's title was "Follow up: Invoices for Legal Services."
Last September, Robbins resigned, saying the district was "unreasonably difficult" to serve. Nearly $230,000 of the firm's bills remain unpaid.
In a letter Tuesday, Chief Deputy Attorney General Brent Stratton issued a rare binding opinion against District 86. This compels the district to release the record in question or go to court to fight the ruling.
Annually, the attorney general receives thousands of complaints alleging violations of the Freedom of Information and Open Meetings acts. So far this year, it has issued eight binding opinions.
The district's new law firm, Evergreen Park-based Odelson, logged nearly 23 hours in fighting Patch's complaint, costing the district $4,277, according to its invoices.
By contrast, Patch spent about two hours, at a far lower pay rate.
In its denial, the district cited the exceptions for attorney-client privilege and preliminary notes.
However, Stratton disagreed that those exceptions apply.
"(T)he contested record relates broadly to the billing dispute between the District and its former counsel," he said. "The record does not reveal the substance of matters on which the District sought legal advice or any legal advice the District's former attorney provided while acting as its legal advisor."
The exception for preliminary notes protects the decision-making process by encouraging a free flow of ideas. This can apply to attorneys and other outside contractors.
But Stratton said the district and its former lawyer held independent interests.
"The (District's) confidential arguments did not demonstrate the interests of its former counsel were aligned with its own at the time it received the correspondence," Stratton said.
District officials couldn't be reached for immediate comment Tuesday.
Last month, the attorney general's office found District 86 broke the law when it redacted the names of the district's recipients of legal advice from the attorney bills. The agency asked the district to unredact the information. The determination was in response to a complaint filed by Daniel Levinthal, husband of former school board member Debbie Levinthal.
The non-binding opinion did not mandate the release, but the district, like most entities, followed the attorney general's advice.
Under previous law firms, the district divulged the information in question. But the district stopped doing so after it hired Odelson late last year.
Last July, the attorney general found the school board broke state law when it decided behind closed doors a year earlier to suspend then-Superintendent Tammy Prentiss. The vote was supposed to have been taken publicly. The attorney general's finding was in response to a complaint from Patch.
In early 2024, the attorney general determined the board violated state law when it held a closed session on goal-setting for the superintendent two years earlier. That discussion should have been in public. Hinsdale resident Dale Kleber filed the complaint.