AG Brown names Morgan Damerow Chief Transparency Counsel

Attorney General Nick Brown has chosen veteran open government advocate Morgan Damerow to lead the office’s new Public Records and Open Government Unit.
 
Damerow, an attorney in various roles with the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) since 2003, will hold the newly created position of Chief Transparency Counsel. Prior to this appointment, Damerow spent the last eight years leading the office’s Local Government Consultation Program, a respected resource that provides local government attorneys and staff with consultation and training for compliance with the Public Records Act.
 
“I believe that transparency is essential in maintaining public trust and that people have a right to know. For the past eight years, I’ve helped local governments across the state with transparency. I’m excited to focus my efforts at the AGO on supporting the modernization of the public records process for governments,” Damerow said. “I want to thank Attorney General Brown for this opportunity.”
 
“Morgan is a skilled public servant who cares deeply about the public’s right to know,” Brown said. “He has the experience and vision to advance the AGO’s efforts to improve and modernize our public records and retention processes, provide coordinated and consistent advice on open government issues, and continuously look for new ways to improve government transparency and responsiveness.”
 
In his outgoing role, Damerow has conducted thousands of local government consultations on the Public Records Act and other open government laws. He and his team also collaborated with groups like the Washington Association of Public Records Officers and the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys to provide many more hours of training on the Public Records Act.
 
In this new role, Damerow will lead the new Public Records and Open Government Unit within the Administration Division, which includes the office’s Public Records and Constituent Services, the Public Records Counsel, and the Local Government Consultation Program. 
 
The Chief Transparency Counsel will work holistically on the agency’s process of responding to records requests and make changes across the organization to increase the agency’s performance and efficiency. The Public Records and Open Government Unit will be responsible for implementing these improvements and providing agency staff with training and advice to ensure they’re successfully adopted.
 
Damerow obtained his JD from the University of Montana, School of Law in Missoula, Montana, in 1997. Prior to that he earned his BA in Business and Philosophy at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, in 1990. 

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