Public Interest

An Airing Of Grievances On Behalf Of Public Defenders

An overworked lawyer is still an employed lawyer.

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The other day, I recommended that a prospective public defender go to law school only if she can find a way to go for free. In that post, I focused on the prospective PD’s situation. But there are plenty of reasons for anyone to be cautious about pursuing a PD position. While times are tough for many public interest lawyers, the situation for PDs in some states is downright atrocious.

I mentioned the uncertainty of finding a PD job in my earlier post, and a commenter obligingly followed up:

In Illinois, there are at least 500 applicants per legal job. … Just a few years back, a starting salary for a PD was around 50k, kind of low. You could walk in the door and say, “here I am.” TODAY, a gig like that is the brass ring, a good gig. NOBODY is leaving any PD office.

It might be more correct, though, to say that nobody is voluntarily leaving any PD office.

In Louisiana, there have recently been some involuntary PD departures — read layoffs — with more soon to come. The state PD system is looking at a $5.4 million shortfall, and this deficit trickles down to individual PD offices. For example, the PD office that serves Caddo Parish is looking at a $700,000 cut. The head of that office, Alan Golden, reportedly said that to offset that money, he will “have to make personnel cuts” and “cut salaries and retirement benefits” while increasing attorney caseloads. These personnel, salary, and benefit cuts are slated to begin on April 1. And the PD office that serves nearby Bossier Parish has already laid off four contract attorneys in the last month — this despite employing only seven staff attorneys. You can imagine what’s happening to those staff attorneys’ caseloads.

And speaking of caseloads, consider Missouri. Last summer, the Missouri PD system made news when an ABA study concluded that Missouri PDs spend less time on their cases than they “should… in order to provide reasonably effective assistance of counsel” — the constitutional bare minimum. The study’s finding is the natural offshoot of an underfunded system where there simply aren’t enough attorneys to handle the system’s caseload. As a step toward fixing this problem, last fall the Missouri legislature passed a $3.5 million boost to the state’s PD budget. But Missouri Governor Jay Nixon found a way to withhold the additional funding, despite having his initial veto overridden. This year’s recommended budget from Governor Nixon reflects a stagnant PD budget, so it looks like the system will stay underfunded.

Still, an overworked lawyer is an employed lawyer. And in case you’re looking, the Missouri PD’s office is actually hiring! The starting salary for a Missouri PD? $38,928.

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Then there’s Massachusetts. Last year, the Massachusetts Bar Association released a study that found its way onto ATL in a post titled “In What State Do Courthouse Janitors Make More Money Than Prosecutors?” Not only did the report conclude that some prosecutors do in fact make less money than courthouse janitors in Massachusetts; it also noted that, adjusting for cost of living, Massachusetts PDs are the lowest-paid in the nation with a starting salary of $40,000. It was not a shock, then, that in December a commission established by ex-Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick recommended upping the minimum salary for both prosecutors and PDs to $55,360. But now newly minted Governor Charlie Baker is staring a major statewide budget deficit in the face. So it’s also not a shock that his proposed budget keeps system-wide spending on Massachusetts PD salaries at its current level. Looks like PDs are unlikely to see that 38% raise.

Still, working for peanuts is work. And the Massachusetts PD’s office (called the Committee for Public Counsel Services or CPCS) is hiring too!

What’s the takeaway? If you’re thinking of becoming a PD but aren’t sure, consider carefully. Embarking on a career as a PD is uncertain: it can be tough to get the job but easy to lose it, and the workload is high while the pay is low. The job might not be for you. But if you’re a true believer — if you’re set on following the PD path despite its pitfalls — you can at least take comfort in the knowledge that the work is critically important. Let’s just hope our purse-string-holding policymakers eventually realize that too.

Sam Wright is a dyed-in-the-wool, bleeding-heart public interest lawyer who has spent his career exclusively in nonprofits and government. If you have ideas, questions, kudos, or complaints about his column or public interest law in general, send him an email at [email protected].

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