K.L. v. Evesham Tp. Bd. of Educ., 423 N.J. Super. 337 (App. Div. 2011).  There are not many published appellate cases in New Jersey that discuss in any detail the attorney-client privilege or the work product doctrine.  Though this opinion, written by Judge Ashrafi, is primarily an Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) case, it is worth reading by everyone because of its discussion of attorney-client and work product.  The panel concluded that the attorney-client pri

Smith v. Hudson County Register, 2011 WL 1529730 (App. Div. April 25, 2011).  This opinion, by Judge Sabatino, applied the catalyst doctrine to an Open Public Records Act (“OPRA”) case.  In Mason v. Hoboken, 196 N.J. 51 (2008), also an OPRA case, the Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled that the catalyst doctrine remained vital in New Jersey even though the Supreme Court of the United States had rejected that doctrine under federal fee-shifting statutes.  [

Jones v. Hayman, 418 N.J. Super. 291 (App. Div. 2011).  This was a class action suit by women inmates against the Department of Corrections (“DOC”).  The key question in the case, as stated by Judge Fisher in his opinion for the Appellate Division, was when a plaintiff under a fee-shifting statute “may be deemed a prevaling party under the catalyst theory when the underlying action is dismissed as moot without a final judicial determination on the merits of the case.R