Does a private law firm have to respond to a public records request when it does contract work for a city?

The short answer is: it depends on the records, not just on who holds them. A private law firm is not a government agency, so it usually has no direct duty to answer public records requests on its own. But the records it creates or holds on behalf of a city may still be public, and the city generally cannot use a contractor as a shield to keep them secret.

Two questions to separate

It helps to split the issue into two parts:

• Is the firm itself a covered “public body”? Almost always no. Public records laws — at the state and local level — apply to government agencies, not to private businesses simply because they have a government client.
• Are the firm’s records “public records”? Sometimes yes. Many state laws define a public record by its content and purpose — information made or kept in connection with public business — rather than by where it physically sits.

When contractor records become disclosable

Most public records statutes reach records that a contractor creates, receives, or maintains on behalf of the government to perform a public function. Common patterns:

• The city remains the records custodian. A requester sends the request to the city, and the city must retrieve responsive records from its contractor, just as it would from its own files.
• The contract itself requires it. Well-drafted government contracts state that records related to the work belong to the public entity and must be produced on request, and that the contractor must follow applicable retention rules.
• The function is governmental. Courts in several states ask whether the firm is essentially doing the public’s business; records tied to that work are more likely to be treated as public.

What usually stays protected

Public records laws contain exemptions, and law firm work carries strong ones — especially attorney-client privilege and attorney work product. A firm’s purely internal business records, or legal advice covered by privilege, often remain exempt even when the underlying matter is public.

Practical takeaways

Rules vary significantly by state, so check your jurisdiction’s statute and the language of the specific contract. As a general principle: route the request to the government client, expect records tied to the public work to be in scope, and apply exemptions deliberately rather than withholding wholesale.

Learn more at the FOIA and public records hub.