Partner Greg Habeeb lauded as “legislative all-star” in Editorial by The Roanoke Times

Gentry Locke Partner Gregory D. Habeeb, who specializes in complex business and catastrophic injury cases at Gentry Locke while also serving in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Virginia’s 8th District, was recently noted in a list of “legislative all-stars” in an editorial by The Roanoke Times.

The editorial cited how Habeeb’s bill to make court records accessible to the public through a single source, which became law, has made it easier for the public and researchers to access the information. Here is how The Roanoke Times described the impact this law has on the Commonwealth:

If you believe government should be more transparent, then you should be cheering on Habeeb. Over the past few years, Freedom of Information Act advocates have called attention to how there’s one branch of government that’s been impervious to open government — the court system. Most court records (juvenile records are the main exception) have always been open and in modern times they’ve even been digitized through the clerk of court in each locality. The state Supreme Court even maintains them all in a database, but the court has also held that those records are the property of each clerk’s office. That makes it difficult if not impossible to analyze them to identify trends, such as disparities in sentencing. Habeeb authored a bill — now law — that requires the court to make that information public, and also create a single way to access it. That’s All-Star worthy.