Attorneys Looking For A Payday Refuse To Represent Poor Clients

Attorneys Looking For A Payday Refuse To Represent Poor Clients

Unless the state boosts the compensation pay rates of lawyers, then the numbers of attorneys who will take on cases of indigent criminal defendants in the three largest counties of an eastern state will continue to plummet and will before long come to a severe crisis. The judges of the three big counties claimed that the rates of pay per hour for attorneys who willingly handle the cases of indigent criminal defendants must be raised, and possibly even doubled, from the present low rates.

One judge in particular states that a list of volunteers already exists, half of whom are attorneys with three years of experience or less and who are committed to helping their communities by representing these defendants. The judge went on to state that the people who are no longer willing to take the cases stop doing so because they are not being paid enough. The result of attorneys' refusal to take on these cases because of the low rates they're paid, the judge warned, is that poor people will be saddled with lawyers who don't have the experience these serious cases require. His suggestion is that the billable hourly rate be increased by 100 percent.

Lawyers increasingly decline representation of poor clients due to the fact that they stand to make far more money drafting estate plans, conducting business transactions, or doing civil litigation. It isn't fair to expect lawyers to lose money while working for the state. The vast majority of the state's criminal cases need appointed lawyers, and some lawyers lose more money than others taking the cases.

Indigent case attorney fees were reduced a couple of decades ago because of a budget cut. Both in-court and out-of-court hourly rates experienced a significant drop. The state is paying just about what they paid twenty years ago. Requesting that the committee minimally restore the prior rates per hour, a different county judge agreed with his colleague's legitimate concern.

As the numbers of lawyers who have walked away from the list of volunteers in recent months is growing, he claimed that his court is also approaching a real crisis point. This judge thinks that lawyers who have already left, and those who are thinking about leaving, may be persuaded by a rate increase. They are pleased with the current system, except that they think the attorneys need to be paid more money.

Even though one county has over 300 lawyers working in it, there are very few who will take the indigent cases. And, the number who will is shrinking daily. Over ninety percent of those who ask to be taken off the indigent case list cite the money as the reason, according to one judge. One district has about 1/4 of the practicing attorneys who will consider doing indigent work. The original list has lost even more members, causing that number to slip further. No action was taken by the legislative committee.

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