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New Mexico Foundation for Open Government Continuing Legal Education Seminar 

 

Register now for the fifth-annual New Mexico Foundation for Open Government CLE, "Public Records and Open Meetings: Looking for Sunlight."

For attorneys, paralegals, public officials, journalists and citizens. Approved for 6 continuing education credits, including 1 ethics credit.

Public Records and Open Meetings:  Looking for Sunlight 

 New Mexico Foundation for Open Government

Continuing Legal Education

Thursday, May 5, 2016

 Albuquerque Journal, 7777 Jefferson St. NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109

$210 for FOG Members who register by April 1; $215 after April 1

$250 for Nonmembers by April 1; $255 after April 1

Comments from previous CLEs:  

"Once again, the entire CLE was informative, engaging and relevant. Great job!"

"Great informative CLE.  Looking forward to the next one."

"All sessions were on target."

PROGRAM OF EVENTS:

8:30 – 9:00 AM: Registration

9:00 – 10:15 AM: Open Meetings Act and recent issues.  Presented by Daniel Yohalem

• When is a subcommittee subject to OMA; lessons  from the recent SIC Court of Appeals Decision and the ISC 
•  When can a public officials recess into executive session?
• When are nonprofit boards subject to OMA? 

10:15 – 10:30 AM:  Break

10:30 – 11:45 AM: Public Schools, privacy and related personnel issues.  Panel discussion by Karen Moses, Tania Maestas, Greg Williams and Geno Zamora

• Personnel exception in APS and other cases
• Can any information about students be released to the public?
• Gallup Independent lawsuit against Gallup school district
• From the perspective of school boards….
• From the perspective of a newsroom…

11:45 – 1:00 PM: Lunch on your own

1:00 – 1:45 PM:  Current issues under the Inspection of Public Records Act.  Presented by Charles “Kip” Purcell

• New rules by Department of Health in regard to names of medical cannabis producers
• Regulation vs. statute
• Access to databases—a public record?

1:45 – 3:00 PM:  Update on new legislation; legislative changes to IPRA or OMA?  Panel presentation by Rep. Jim Dines, Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto and Susan Boe

• Legislative action in 2016
• IPRA report issued by LFC task force in November 2015
• Should IPRA or OMA be amended?
• Transparency vs OMA/IPRA:  Same issue?

3:00 – 3:15 PM:  Break

3:15 – 3:45 PM:  Hotline issues.  Presented by Greg Williams

• Proposed court rules on closing courtrooms
•  IPRA fishing expeditions: Working with requestors, Seeking resolutions, Issues and problems records custodians face
• Conducting public forums within the boundaries of the First Amendment—recent cases

3:45 – 4:45 PM: Open Government, Ethics and Professionalism. Presented by Greg Williams and Geno Zamora

• Navigating ethical issues for attorneys advising public bodies
• Using IPRA for discovery

Faculty

Rep. Jim Dines is a retired attorney and was in private practice in Albuquerque for 35 years. He currently is a New Mexico State Representative for District 20 in Bernalillo County.  He was a founding member of FOG and received the first Dixon/First Amendment Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2012 and the initial Dixon/First Amendment Award in Law in 2002. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of New Mexico where he was student body president and student bar association president.

Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto is an attorney and currently serves as Executive Director for County Clerks in New Mexico and is a member of the New Mexico Senate representing District 15 in Bernalillo County.  He is a former state elections director, prosecutor and also has started and grown two small businesses.

Tania Maestas is Director of the Open Government Division of the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General.  The Open Government Division provides a broad range of legal services to state government and facilitates the public’s understanding of and access to government activities. Tania earned her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Denver School of Law.  Before becoming Director, Tania was an associate attorney at a firm specializing in criminal defense and General Counsel for the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department.  Tania has also been an instructor for the National Association of Attorneys General Training and Research Institute and for the Conference of Western Attorneys General since 2007.

Karen Moses is the managing editor of the Albuquerque Journal, and has been in the news business for more than 37 years. A graduate of the University of New Mexico with a BA in journalism, she began her newspaper career at Pioneer Press covering the northern suburbs of Chicago. She then moved to Gallup, where she was Regional Editor at the Gallup Independent, before joining the Albuquerque Journal in 1981. After holding numerous positions in various departments in the newsroom, she became managing editor in 2001. Moses is a member of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government Board of Directors. She is a past president of the New Mexico Press Association.

Charles “Kip” Purcell is a director at the Rodey Law Firm with extensive experience in media law, legal malpractice, appellate litigation, and general litigation. Before joining the firm, Mr. Purcell was law clerk to the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was also a member of the Harvard Law Review from 1982 to 1984, and was executive editor of that journal from 1983 to 1984. He has achieved the highest Martindale-Hubbell rating, and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America for his expertise in appellate practice law, Bet-the-Company litigation, commercial litigation, legal malpractice law-defendants, litigation-First Amendment and medical malpractice law-defendants. He is a past president of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government.

Gregory P. Williams has more than 16 years of litigation experience, with a special focus on media law and governmental entity defense. He is a member and former President of the board of directors of the Alumni Association of the University of New Mexico School of Law and currently is president of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government. Before joining Peifer, Hanson & Mullins, P.A., he practiced at Dines & Gross, P.C. He has degrees from Princeton University (B.A. 1991) and the University of New Mexico (J.D. 1995). While at the University of New Mexico, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the New Mexico Law Review.

Daniel Yohalem has been engaged in the practice of public interest law for the past 40 years, first in Washington, D.C. and then in New Mexico. He is currently in private practice, representing plaintiffs in First Amendment, civil rights, open government and other areas. Yohalem, who received his B.A. from Yale (1970) and J.D. from Columbia University Law School (1973), has litigated and supervised complex cases at every level of the Federal and State court systems. He has served as Chief Legal Counsel for the NM Taxation and Revenue Department, Chief of the Civil Division of the NM AG's Office, member of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government Board since 1998 (President from 2002-2003), and co-founder and Vice President of the Santa Fe Neighborhood Law Center Board of Directors.

Geno Zamora is an attorney at Ortiz & Zamora.  He is former general counsel of the Santa Fe Public School District, has been chief legal counsel for the Governor of New Mexico, city attorney for the City of Santa Fe, general counsel for the New Mexico Economic Development Department and assistant attorney general.  He received his undergraduate degree from the Georgetown University School of Business and his law degree from the Arizona College of Law.  In the late 1990’s, Geno joined an internet startup company in Boston, Massachusetts, industrytoindustry.com, an initiative of Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum. Zamora also is a former chief analyst for the New Mexico House of Representatives.

Susan Boe is executive director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government. She is a retired attorney and was formerly a partner at Faegre & Benson, a Minneapolis-based international law firm.  She also was general counsel for Iowa Realty, a Berkshire-Hathaway Company.  Prior to becoming an attorney, Boe worked for daily newspapers in Corpus Christi and San Antonio, Texas and was a public information officer for the University of Texas at San Antonio and The Ohio State University.  She received a B.S. degree in journalism from Iowa State University and her law degree with highest distinction from the University of Iowa.

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