STEUBEN COUNTY, NY (WENY) -- The legal battle continues between Steuben County and Sheriff James Allard. A hearing was held on Thursday, January 4th to have a State Supreme Court Justice consider the Sheriff's application for discovery.

An application for discovery is a formal process of exchanging information between parties about the witnesses and evidence they plan to present at trial.

"We are trying to access information from confidential executive session and information that was shared, or threats that were made to county legislators when they made the decision that harmed the Sheriff," said Karlee Bolaños, the legal representative for Sheriff Allard.

The Sheriff wants to access the information during the executive session on September 25th, 2023. Sheriff Allard and his legal team alleged at least one county legislator was pressured or threatened to decide to revoke the Sheriff's indemnification. Indemnification is a form of security; in the instance the Sheriff was sued, and there was a judgment against the Sheriff, the county would pay for the judgment.

On September 25th, the Steuben County Legislature passed two resolutions regarding liability insurance and indemnification for Sheriff Allard. On November 27th, the legislature voted to rescind the resolution regarding the liability insurance.

Bolaños said if the application for discovery were approved, they would try to speak to County Legislator, Hilda Lando.

"Counsel indicated they don't keep records of executive session meetings. If that's true, then we need to speak [at least] with [one] legislator. Additionally, the counsel is saying the information that we believe could be problematic for the county was attorney-client privileged. Which we are saying if [the] information leads to a bad faith determination, it's not something that can be concealed through raising the attorney-client privilege," said Bolaños.

Alongside Bolaños and Sheriff Allard, was Counsel Thomas Mitchell from the New York State Sheriff's Association. He said he was there after filing an amicus curiae (a friend of the court) brief to support the Sheriff.

"We don't [file a friend of the court brief] a lot, but we do it in cases where the matter at hand impacts all sheriffs and not just this one sheriff. We're an interested party but we're not actually a party to the litigation," said Mitchell.

The attorney for the county declined to comment because nothing was decided on Thursday. There's no word yet on when a decision will be made if Sheriff Allard's application for discovery will be approved or denied.

Bolaños said she's hopeful the judge will rule in the sheriff's favor.