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Federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits have risen sharply since a recent low in 2021. Filings increased from 653 in 2021 to 1,057 in 2025, with more than 900 FOIA cases already filed in 2026 through September 22nd. That increase puts new pressure on lawyers, law firms, and government agencies handling these matters, which must manage document collections, statutory timelines, exemption analyses, and litigation budgets at once.
Lex Machina®, the LexisNexis Legal Analytics® platform, transforms the court filings and documents that drive FOIA disputes and millions of other civil matters into structured litigation intelligence. Our process of AI-assisted lawyer review captures outcome metrics for commercially relevant lawsuits, including their damage awards, equitable remedies, procedural resolutions, findings, timing, appeals, and the experience of the judges, parties, law firms, and attorneys involved. Legal and risk professionals can use that information to assess cases, shape strategy, forecast budgets, select counsel, develop business, and manage risk with confidence.
FOIA gives the public a right to request executive-branch agency records, subject to exemptions and limited exclusions. Congress enacted it on July 4, 1966, revising the Administrative Procedure Act’s public-disclosure provision, then codified it as 5 U.S.C. § 552 in 1967. Later amendments added exclusions, exemptions, and language regarding electronic access to requests and records, among other changes.
FOIA also sits within a broader transparency framework. Congress passed the Federal Advisory Committee Act in 1972 to open many advisory-committee meetings and materials, the Government in the Sunshine Act in 1976 to establish an open-meetings default for covered multi-member agencies, and the Presidential Records Act in 1978 to create a separate access regime for presidential records.
All 50 states have also adopted their own public-records laws. See National Conference of State Legislatures, Public Records Law and State Legislatures (updated April 16, 2025). Each has its own coverage, exemptions, procedures, and enforcement path.
Lex Machina uses AI to identify potentially relevant matters, then legal subject-matter experts review underlying court documents. That review removes matters assigned the 895 code when the complaint alleges only non-FOIA claims, and adds matters containing FOIA claims that received another Nature of Suit code. The result is document-level, practice-specific data that gives lawyers a more accurate view of actual FOIA litigation, including the outcomes, timing, judges, parties, attorneys, and law firms most relevant to a new matter.
After declining from 909 filings in 2019 to 653 in 2021, FOIA filings rose in each of the next four years, reaching 1,057 in 2025. That was 62% above the 2021 low, and the 919 cases filed through September 4, 2026 already equal 87% of 2025’s full-year volume. This has not been an especially top-heavy trend: since January 1, 2025, the leading claimant has accounted for less than 6% of filings.
FOIA lawsuits in U.S. federal district courts, 2011 to 2026. The 2026 figure reflects year-to-date filings, and the open dot is the chart’s full-year estimate.
The filing increase has coincided with record demand and a growing backlog. The Department of Justice reports that agencies received a record 1.7 million FOIA requests in fiscal year 2025, while the government-wide backlog rose 27% to nearly 340,000 requests. U.S. Department of Justice, 2025 Annual FOIA Report Summary (July 1, 2026). When agencies face more requests than they can resolve within FOIA’s ordinary 20-working-day response period, more requesters may turn to federal court for a timetable and a merits ruling. That pressure likely contributes to litigation volume, even though not every backlogged request becomes a lawsuit.
Many modern requests are harder to process quickly. The Government Accountability Office has identified request complexity, staffing challenges, and litigation pressures as recurring contributors to FOIA backlogs. See Freedom of Information Act: Additional Guidance and Reliable Data Can Help Address Agency Backlogs (GAO Report to Congressional Requesters, March 2024). Searches can span multiple offices, electronic systems, and agencies, especially when records require consultation or extensive redaction.
Case resolutions for FOIA lawsuits filed in U.S. federal district courts since January 1, 2016 and terminated through December 31, 2025.
Among FOIA lawsuits filed since January 1, 2016 and terminated by December 31, 2025, about 71% were likely finalized by private settlements. Merits-based outcomes were less common, although when they occur in favor of either plaintiffs or defendants, most resolve via summary judgment.
Time to contested dismissal, summary judgment, and termination for FOIA cases filed in U.S. federal district courts since January 1, 2016.
For FOIA lawsuits filed since 2016, contested-dismissal cases reached that milestone at a median of 253 days, while the median time to termination was 392 days. Cases reaching summary judgment took longer, at a median of 498 days. The chart’s long rightward distributions, extending to displayed markers of 1,327 days for summary judgment and 1,547 days for termination, reveal the potentially material budget and staffing risk of a smaller group of lengthy matters.
For FOIA practitioners, these analytics can inform early case strategy. They also support business development by enabling law firms to demonstrate experience with evidence rather than broad claims. The same approach scales to commercially prolific practices. Civil litigation teams handling lawsuits with issues ranging from antitrust to zoning can use comparable data on filings, outcomes, damages, remedies, timing, and appellate results to improve litigation recommendations and show prospective clients how their experience applies to a specific dispute.
Across millions of lawsuits, legal and risk professionals can determine in Lex Machina which parties prevailed, how much in damages courts awarded, what equitable remedies were imposed, how long matters took, how disputes terminated, and whether particular results survived appellate review. Those answers help lawyers win more cases and win more business. To see how similar insights can support your practice, please contact us.
The Freedom of Information Act is a federal transparency law, codified at 5 U.S.C. § 552, that allows any person to request agency records. Agencies must disclose responsive records unless an exemption or exclusion applies. FOIA generally covers executive-branch agencies, while state and local records are governed by separate state public-records laws.
One example of a Freedom of Information Act request is a request to a federal agency for final inspection reports, contracts, correspondence, or policy records on a defined topic. The requester should identify the agency and records sought with reasonable specificity. If the agency does not respond or withholds records, the requester may have administrative and, in some circumstances, judicial options under FOIA.