• You have the right to request to inspect or receive copies of public records, or both.
• You have the right to request that any charges for the requested records be estimated in advance.
• If you believe that your FOIA rights have been violated, you may file a petition in district or circuit court to compel compliance with FOIA. Alternatively, you may contact the FOIA Council for a nonbinding advisory opinion.

• When submitting a request for public records, your request must identify the records you are seeking with "reasonable specificity." This is a common-sense standard. It does not refer to or limit the volume or number of records that you are requesting; instead, it requires that you be specific enough so that we can identify and locate the records that you are seeking.
• Your request must ask for existing records or documents. FOIA gives you a right to inspect or copy records; it does not apply to a situation where you are asking general questions about the work of the VBBE and does not require the VBBE to create a record that does not exist.
• FOIA does not require that your request be in writing, nor do you need to specifically state that you are requesting records under FOIA. You may request records by U.S. Mail, fax, email, in person, or over the phone.
  • From a practical perspective, it may be helpful to both you and the person receiving your request to put your request in writing. This allows you to create a record of your request. It also gives the VBBE a clear statement of what records you are requesting, so that there is no misunderstanding over a verbal request. However, the VBBE cannot refuse to respond to your FOIA request if it is not in writing.
• You may choose the format in which you would like to receive the records from any format that is used by the VBBE in the regular course of business. For example, if you are requesting records maintained in an Excel spreadsheet, you may elect to receive those records electronically via email, on a thumb drive, or as a printed copy.

If we have questions about your request, the VBBE FOIA Officer or designee will contact you and attempt to clarify the type of records that you are seeking. It there are delays or confusion regarding your request, the VBBE FOIA Officer or designee will contact you to reach a reasonable agreement about the response. Making a FOIA request is not an adversarial process; we may need to discuss your request with you to ensure that we understand what records you are seeking.

You may direct your request for records from the VBBE to Catherine Hill, Secretary-Treasurer, FOIA Officer, at 2201 W Broad Street, Suite 101, Richmond, VA 23220, (804) 367-0412, email@barexam.virginia.gov. You may also contact us with any questions you have concerning requesting records from the VBBE.

In addition, the FOIA Council is available to answer any questions you may have about FOIA. The council may be contacted by email at foiacouncil@dls.virginia.gov or by phone at (866) 448-4100.

To submit feedback on the VBBE’s response to your records request, please fill out the Public Comment Form available on the FOIA Council's website.

• The VBBE must respond to your request within five working days of receiving it. "Day One" is considered the day after your request is received. The five-day period does not include weekends or holidays.
• You do not have to state why you want the records before we respond to your request. FOIA does, however, allow the VBBE to require you to provide your name and legal address.
• FOIA requires that the VBBE make one of the following responses to your request within the five-day time period:
  1. We provide you with the records that you have requested in their entirety.
  2. We withhold all of the records that you have requested, because all of the records are subject to a specific statutory exemption. If all of the records are being withheld, we must send you a response in writing. That response must (i) identify the volume and subject matter of the records being withheld and (ii) state the specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows us to withhold the records.
  3. We provide some of the records that you have requested but withhold other records. We cannot withhold an entire record if only a portion of it is subject to an exemption. In that instance, we may redact the portion of the record that may be withheld and must provide you with the remainder of the record. We must provide you with a written response stating the specific section of the Code of Virginia that allows portions of the requested records to be withheld.
  4. We inform you in writing that the requested records cannot be found or do not exist (we do not have the records you want). However, if we know that another public body has the requested records, we must include contact information for the other public body in our response to you.
  5. If it is practically impossible for the VBBE to respond to your request within the five-day period, we must state this in writing, explaining the conditions that make the response impossible. This will allow us seven additional working days to respond to your request, giving us a total of twelve working days to respond to your request.
• If you make a request for a very large number of records, and we feel that we cannot provide the records to you within twelve working days without disrupting our other organizational responsibilities, the VBBE will contact you and make a reasonable effort to reach an agreement with you concerning the production of the records. If an agreement is unable to be reached, the VBBE will petition the court for additional time to respond to your request.

• The VBBE may assess reasonable charges not to exceed its actual cost incurred in accessing, duplicating, supplying, or searching for the requested records. The VBBE is prohibited from imposing any extraneous, intermediary, or surplus fees or expenses to recoup the general costs associated with creating or maintaining records or transacting the general business of the VBBE. Any duplicating fee charged will not exceed the actual cost of duplication.
• You may have to pay for the actual costs of producing the records that you request from the VBBE. This would include staff time spent searching for the requested records, copying costs, or any other costs directly related to supplying the requested records. Generally, if the request will take less than 30 minutes of staff time to respond, the VBBE will not assess costs.
• You may request that we estimate in advance the charges for supplying the records that you have requested. This will allow you to know about any costs upfront or give you the opportunity to modify your request if you want to lower the estimated costs. The timeline of the request will be put on hold until the you indicate whether to proceed with the request based on the estimate. If you do not respond within 30 days, your request will be deemed withdrawn.
• If the estimated costs to respond to your request is more than $200.00, the VBBE may require you to pay a deposit, not to exceed the full amount of the estimate, before proceeding with your request. The five days that we have to respond to your request does not include the time between when we ask for a deposit and when we receive your deposit.
• If you owe the VBBE money from a previous FOIA request that has remained unpaid for more than 30 days, the VBBE may require payment of the past-due bill before we will respond to your new FOIA request.

The following is a general description of the types of records held by the VBBE:

• Personnel records concerning the VBBE employees and officials;
• Records of contracts to which the VBBE is a party; and
• Applications for licensure.

If you are unsure whether the VBBE has the record(s) you seek, please contact Catherine Hill, Secretary-Treasurer, FOIA Officer, at 2201 W Broad Street, Suite 101, Richmond, VA 23220, (804) 367-0412, or by email at email@barexam.virginia.gov.

The Code of Virginia allows any public body to withhold certain records from public disclosure. The following are some of the exemptions applicable to the VBBE:

• Personnel records (§ 2.2-3705.1 (1) of the Code of Virginia).
• Records subject to attorney-client privilege (§ 2.2-3705.1 (2)) or attorney work product (§ 2.2-3705.1 (3)).
• Records of examinations used, administered, or prepared by the VBBE (§ 2.2-3705.1 (4) and (§ 54.1-108(1)).
• Applications for admission to exams or for licensure, certification, registration or permitting and scoring records (§ 54.1-108(2)).

• The VBBE invokes the exemptions provided for in FOIA, including those exemptions that exist in the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia, as necessary to protect the confidentiality of the applications for exam and licensure and certification, and the Virginia bar exam. The VBBE balances its obligations under FOIA with its statutory obligations and its duties as set forth in the Code of Virginia and the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia.