Terry Mutchler, Esq.

Terry Mutchler is an experienced trial attorney and former award-winning AP journalist appointed by Gov. Ed Rendell to create Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records, enforcing the state’s Right to Know Law. She created the nation’s first Transparency Law Practice serving multi-national corporations, pharmaceuticals, energy and media companies and is widely respected as a national leader in this growing area of law.

In her seven-year term as founding Executive Director of Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records, Terry built the Office from scratch into a $2.1 Million operation with 15 staff. She wrote policies and procedures used today to govern record release for the more than 10,000 units of state and local government subject to this open-government law. Prior to her six-year appointment at the OOR, Terry worked in the media law group and appellate practice group of a major Chicago law firm. Focused on privacy issues, Ms. Mutchler clerked for both the Supreme Court of Illinois and the Executive Office of the President of the United States during the Clinton Administration. She was appointed as Illinois’ first Public Access Counselor, enforcing that state’s sunshine laws, and a senior advisor to the Attorney General. While at the Office of Open Records, Ms. Mutchler testified before Congress, advised state legislators and consulted with journalists, policy makers and even an international pool of judges seeking to duplicate the "Pennsylvania Model" of open government in their jurisdictions.

Before becoming an attorney, Terry was an investigative reporter for The Associated Press, becoming the first woman to be appointed AP Bureau Chief and Statehouse Correspondent in Springfield, Illinois and also serving as AP Bureau Chief in Atlantic City, New Jersey and Juneau, Alaska. Before that, she was a reporter in Pennsylvania and won several Keystone Awards, Pennsylvania’s top honor for reporting.

Common Cause awarded Ms. Mutchler the 2016 Bob Edgar Public Service Achievement Award for "outstanding contribution to transparency in government and integrity for her force of imagination, initiative and perseverance."

Terry received her B.A. from the Pennsylvania State University and J.D. from the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago. She was a Bohnett Fellow for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.