NJ State Climate Lawsuit Against Exxon Compromised By Ethics Violations

Exxon's Law Firm Hired DEP Deputy Commissioner Who Was DEP's Chief Lawyer In Investigating And Drafting The Exxon Climate Lawsuit

If, during the trial, the law firm representing a high profile criminal defendant hired the State prosecutor who investigated the crime and filed the indictment, then the gross conflicts of interest would prompt howls of public outrage and trigger formal legal ethics sanctions.

That's exactly what just transpired in New Jersey, where Archer & Greiner, P.C., the law firm representing Exxon in a pending climate lawsuit filed by the State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), hired Sean Moriarty, the DEP's Deputy Commissioner who served as the Chief legal investigator, strategist and supervised the Exxon lawsuit filing.

In order to limit “revolving door” abuse, NJ State Ethics law imposes “post employment” restrictions on high level State officials. After leaving office, State officials can’t work for the same corporations they regulated and/or litigated against. They also can’t provide information they obtained during State service that is “not generally available to members of the public” to these corporations.

In fact, the Executive Director of the State Ethics Commission wrote a detailed 17 page legal opinion that found that Mr. Moriarty was "substantially and directly" involved in the Exxon climate lawsuit, and therefore prohibited from working on anything related to Exxon (full opinion provided upon request as a PDF). The opinion found the following:

Based on that direct and substantial involvement, the Executive Director found the following:

Application of Standards and Conclusion

Based upon the information provided by DEP Commissioner LaTourette, Chief Advisor Stofa, ELO Horiates, AAG Kleinman, as well as the information you provided during our meeting on December 20, 2023, it is my opinion that you were substantially and directly involved in both the Climate Change Litigation and the Deull Fuel/South Jersey Gas Natural Resources Damage matter. In your position as Deputy Commissioner, the Legal Department reports to you and you serve as the primary liaison to the OAG, and over see all litigated matters.

Specifically with respect to the Climate Change Litigation, you reviewed and edited a draft Complaint prior to its filing, were consulted with respect to outside counsel’s retainer agreement and fees, advised direct subordinates on framing DEP’s position in the Complaint prior to filing, acted as a DEP liaison with the DOL, directed subordinates to convey information and opinions to the DOL, attended meetings where the matter was discussed, received updates on the matter, sent emails to direct subordinates giving direction and guidance, and attended the pass conference announcing the filing of the complaint. [...]

... because you were substantially and directly involved in your State employment in these two matters where Archer & Greiner, P.C., continues to represent parties, sections 17 of the Conflicts of Interest Law which prohibits you from working on these matters for any employer other than the State of New Jersey, would also impute the conflict to Archer & Greiner, P.C., and prohibit them from representing Exxon Mobil and South Jersey Gas in the two pending matters, despite your adherence to a strict recusal. You would likewise be prohibited from working on any other matter in which you were substantially and directly involved during your State service for any employer other than the State of New Jersey, at any point in the future.

Importantly, the ED's legal opinion also applied these prohibitions to the law firm that hired Moriarty, meaning that if the law firm hired Moriarty, then they could not represent Exxon (and several other corporate polluters that were targets of Moriarty's DEP work on Natural Resource Damage lawsuits and enforcement cases).

Moriarty appealed the Executive Director's opinion to the full Ethics Commission, a political body. The State Ethics Commission members are appointed by the Governor and include several of Gov. Murphy's cabinet officials.

In a highly unusual move, the full Commission agreed that there were conflicts of interest that would violate the State Ethics law, but that strict enforcement of the law would harm Moriarty's legal career and the interests of the law firm that hired him. The basis for the Commission's reversal was that if ethics law were strictly enforced, then it would ruin his career, harm the law firm, and have huge precedential implications for the legal community (i.e. strictly limit revolving door abuses).

The Commission issued an “Advisory Opinion No. 44″ regarding DEP Deputy Commissioner Moriarty on January 4, 2024. The opinion overruled the findings and conclusions of ethics commission staff in the ED opinion. (see the Commission’s meeting minutes for January 23, 2024 for the rationale and vote).

This gross ethical misconduct may jeopardize the State's climate lawsuit and invites more revolving door corporate corruption.

I filed public records request with DEP. It took several months and my threat to file official complaints for the Department of Law to respond to my OPRA request, which provided the Executive Director’s opinion that was reversed by the Commission.

In disgust, I wrote the following letter to the Chairs of the NJ Senate Environment and Oversight Committees:

[Update: a Trenton source just sent me this email:

Moriarty left Archer at least 2 months ago

Fact: I filed the OPRA public records request that produced the above legal opinion on February 5, 2025, a little over 2 months ago. Timing a coincidence? (I also filed ethics complaints on these issues twice in 2024.)

---------- Original Message ----------

From: Bill WOLFE >

To: senbsmith <SenBSmith@njleg.org>, sengreenstein <sengreenstein@njleg.org>, "senmckeon@njleg.org" <senmckeon@njleg.org>, "senzwicker@njleg.org" <senzwicker@njleg.org>, "Hansen, Eric" <EHansen@njleg.org>

Date: 04/28/2025 11:23 AM EDT

Subject: Revolving Door Ethics Abuse - climate litigation

Dear Chairmen Smith and Zwicker -

I write regarding a case of serious and gross abuse of the NJ State Ethics Law's "post employment restrictions" (for facts and law details, see the attached Staff Opinion by the Executive Director of the State Ethics Commission).

This abuse has corrupted and compromised the State's climate lawsuit against Exxon Mobil.

In a nutshell:

1) former DEP Deputy Commissioner Sean Moriarty was the DEP's Chief legal official involved in the strategy and filing of the State's lawsuit against climate polluters, see: Platkin v. Exxon Mobil Corp., et al, Docket No.: MER-L-001797-22

2) Moriarty left DEP to join the private law firm Archer & Grenier, P.C..

3) Archer & Greiner, P.C. represents Exxon Mobil in the State lawsuit.

4) Prior to his DEP departure, Moriarty received ethics guidance. The Ethics Officers found that Moriarty was "directly and substantially involved" in the climate lawsuit (and other legal matters) and that joining Archer & Greiner would violate the State ethics law's post employment restrictions.

5) Moriarty challenged this conclusion and sought formal guidance from the State Ethics Commission staff.

6) The Executive Director of the Ethics Commission concurred with the DEP ethics officer and wrote an opinion that expanded the scope of the post employment restrictions on Moriarty to the law firm Archer & Greiner (see attached opinion).

7) Moriarty appealed the ED's opinion to the full Ethics Commission.

8) The Commission over ruled the Executive Director's opinion and provided relief from the post employment restrictions that would have been imposed.

I strongly urge you to hold investigative oversight hearings on this abuse and develop reforms to prevent its recurrence.

Bill Wolfe

citizen