FOIA No Records Response — Paid Consultation on an Inadequate Search
A paid consultation with Sherrod Seward, Esq. for requesters told that nothing responsive exists, who have reason to believe otherwise.
A no-records answer is a statement about where an agency looked, which systems it searched and which terms it ran. It is not a statement that the records do not exist, and it is reviewable on exactly that basis: where a withholding or a search is challenged in court, the burden of sustaining its action is on the agency rather than on you. You will leave the call knowing what the response does and does not claim, which parts of the search you are entitled to probe, and whether the better next step is an appeal, a reformulated request, or a suit.
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Request the consultation
Six fields. About a minute.
Bring the call one of these
- You were told no records exist and you have already seen one of them.
- The response does not say where the agency searched, or how.
- You suspect the request was read far more narrowly than you wrote it.
- The records may sit with a different component, or a different agency entirely.
- You need this resolved for a proceeding that already has a date.
What makes a search adequate, and how a no-records answer is tested
The question is not whether every record was found. It is whether the search was reasonably calculated to find them, and that turns on facts an agency has to be able to state: which components and which systems were searched, which terms were run, who was asked, and why those choices were reasonable for the request as written. Where an agency has not said, the answer is not yet testable and asking for the detail is itself a step. Where it has said, the gaps are often visible on the face of the response — a system that plainly holds the material and was not searched, or a search term that could not have matched the way the records are indexed.
This office has been the plaintiff, not only the drafter
Law Offices of Sherrod Seward, PLLC v. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
No. 3:25-cv-00057 (W.D.N.C.), filed January 2025
This office has been the plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act case, not only the drafter of the request. When an agency declined to produce records, the firm filed suit in its own name under 5 U.S.C. 552 to compel production.
A pending matter is described here as a fact about this office's own experience. It is not a result, it does not predict anything about any other case, and every case is decided on its own record. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
How it runs
- Send the enquiryThe form below. Six fields, about a minute.
- Pay the consultation fee$500, on the firm's secure payment page. Credited in full against the fee for the engagement if this office is engaged on the matter.
- The consultationThe call itself. Bring the request, the response letter and the envelope — deadlines run from what the paper says.
- A written summaryWhat was decided, what the next step is, and the date it has to happen by.
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Questions people actually ask
What do I actually get for the fee?
The $500 is the fee for the consultation itself and for the written summary that follows it. It is not a retainer, and it does not include drafting or filing a FOIA request, an administrative appeal, a licence application, a delisting petition, a federal court complaint, a trademark application, a response to a USPTO office action, or a post-registration maintenance filing - each of those is separately scoped and separately quoted. Government, agency and court filing fees, any agency search, review or duplication fees, and any USPTO filing fees, are not included and are payable to the government, not to this office. On a government contract matter it likewise does not include preparing or certifying a claim to a contracting officer, a request for equitable adjustment, a termination settlement proposal, an agency-level protest, a protest at the Government Accountability Office, an appeal to an agency board of contract appeals, or a complaint in the United States Court of Federal Claims - each of those is separately scoped and separately quoted.
Is this legal advice?
The consultation is. This page is not — it is general information about federal practice, and reading it creates no relationship with this office. Sending this form does not create an attorney-client relationship. No attorney-client relationship is formed until this office and you have signed a written engagement agreement.
Can you tell me what my chances are?
You will get a candid assessment of what your record supports and where it is thin, which is the useful version of that question. What you will not get is a percentage. Every matter is decided on its own record by a government officer or a judge, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
What happens if you cannot help?
You will be told so on the call, and told where the matter actually belongs. That happens often enough to be worth saying out loud.
How can they say there are no records when I hold a copy of one?
Bring it. A document you already have, with a note of where it came from and when, is concrete evidence about where the agency should have looked. It does not by itself make the search inadequate — the record may sit outside the components searched, or outside the request as it was written — but it is the kind of fact that turns an argument about adequacy from theoretical into specific.
Is a no-records answer the same as a refusal to confirm or deny?
No, and the difference decides how you respond. A no-records response asserts that a search was run and found nothing. A refusal to confirm or deny declines to say whether records exist at all, on the footing that the answer would itself reveal something protected. They are challenged differently, and establishing which one you actually received is the first thing the call does.