Last October, New Jersey’s brand-new Attorney General Matt Platkin filed a climate lawsuit following years of activist pressure in the state. Platkin quickly retained Sher Edling, the law firm representing nearly two dozen plaintiffs in climate lawsuits on a contingency fee basis, while simultaneously accepting outside funds from billionaires and Hollywood stars.

Although the contingency fee arrangements in other cases have been made public, New Jersey taxpayers still don’t know exactly how much Sher Edling stands to profit from such a victory – and Attorney General Platkin is doing his best to make sure it stays that way.

In a brief opposing open records requests that seek to bring the contract terms to light, the attorney general claims that releasing the details of how much Sher Edling would be paid under certain settlement conditions would “risk opening the door to gamesmanship that has no place in litigation.”

But the gambling of taxpayer money and resources on different settlement “scenarios” sounds exactly like gamesmanship, especially given the massive amounts Sher Edling stands to make in these cases.

Read the full story at EIDClimate.org.

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