AllOnGeorgia Requests Chattooga County Legal Bills; Records Request Follows Former County Attorney’s Open Records Complaint

When AllOnGeorgia asked Chattooga County last week for records on legal spending and litigation, the county said it has the documents. Producing them, it said, will cost more than $50 and take 45 to 60 days.

The request follows an Open Records Act complaint filed last year with the Georgia Attorney General’s office by Christopher Corbin, a Summerville attorney and former Chattooga County attorney. From the late 1990s until December 2003 and from 2007 to 2024, Corbin was the Chattooga County Attorney. His complaint concerned a request for the same kind of records: invoices for legal services.

AllOnGeorgia’s request

AllOnGeorgia submitted an open records request on Oct. 27, 2026, for records covering legal expenses incurred by Chattooga County from Jan. 2, 2025, to the date of processing. It asked for:

• Invoices and billing statements for legal services, whether or not they have been paid.
• Records on any legal matters involving Zentell, William Wilson, and Jonathan Wesley Allen.
• A list of pending lawsuits and claims.
• Records on lawsuits and claims that have been settled or resolved since Jan. 2, 2025.

The request also asked the county not to incur more than $50 without written approval.

The county responded that it “is in possession of documents meeting your request,” adding that “the estimated cost to produce the documents will exceed $50” and that the estimated time is “forty-five to sixty days.”

AllOnGeorgia then asked the county for an itemized invoice of time and expense for each part of the request. As of publication, the county has not responded.

Under the Georgia Open Records Act, agencies have three business days to produce records or to explain when they will be available.

The earlier complaint

According to documents obtained by AllOnGeorgia, Corbin emailed the county commissioner’s office and the county clerk on July 18, 2025, asking for “any invoice for legal services received by the county from January 1, 2025, through July 11, 2025.” He wrote that he followed up on Aug. 9 and again on Sept. 4 without receiving a response. On Sept. 15, he filed a complaint through the state’s Open Government Complaint form.

On Oct. 13, 2025, a staff member in the Attorney General’s office, Kristen Settlemire, apologized to Corbin for missing his complaint in the office’s portal and said Assistant Attorney General Jehae Kim had been assigned to it. On Oct. 15, Kim wrote to Andrea Holley Strawn, an attorney in Summerville, about the complaint regarding the Chattooga County Office of Sole Commissioner and asked the office to respond within 10 business days.

Kim’s letter noted that the Attorney General has discretion to enforce the Open Records Act and the Open Meetings Act, and described a mediation program for resolving disputes between citizens and local governments. “I am not aware of all the circumstances surrounding the request, and I am not assuming that the office violated the law,” Kim wrote.

On Oct. 24, 2025, Chattooga County attorney Holley Strawn-Gilliland, told Kim in an email that “the County Clerk provided Mr. Corbin with the requested documents on October 15, 2025.” Corbin confirmed to Kim the same day that he had received the documents “in the afternoon on the day you sent your letter.” He added: “Shouldn’t have to take a letter from you to make them produce the documents, but it did.”

What comes next

AllOnGeorgia will continue to follow the request and report what the records show once they are released. The outlet has asked the county to explain the basis for its cost estimate and its 45-to-60-day timeline.