Gov. Healey signs off on raise for criminal defense attorneys — but crisis continues
Touted as their largest pay raise in 20 years, a long-awaited boost in hourly wages for bar advocate attorneys was signed into law by Gov. Maura Healey this week.
But in the days following, courtrooms remain in crisis, as the lawyers press on with their work stoppage — now into its third month.
Healey called the raise "substantial," and stated it "reflects our commitment to supporting the important work" that bar advocates do, "even in a challenging budget year."
"I'm grateful to the Legislature for their work to pass this supplemental budget as it is important to public safety, due process and the functioning of our courts," Healey said.
The raises will bring rates from $65 an hour to $75 by 2026, and $85 an hour by 2027. The bill also included language to prevent another bar advocate work stoppage, and a $40 million allocation of funds to the Committee for Public Counsel Services to (CPCS) to hire 320 more lawyers and lessen the agency's heavy reliance on bar advocates.
After accounting for expenses like their office rent and insurances paid out-of-pocket, such as health and malpractice, bar advocates say they effectively earn around $20 per hour — a rate they say makes it impossible to continue providing quality legal defense.
But on Tuesday, criminal defendants who haven't been appointed a lawyer in the past 45 days continued to have their charges dismissed in a courtroom at the central division of Boston Municipal Court.
And on Wednesday, in Lowell District Court, other people facing violent charges — including one man with two felony charges, strangulation and witness intimidation, along with an assault and battery charge — were released on personal recognizance from being held in jail, after not having counsel for at least seven days.
The majority of the roughly 2,600 bar advocates across Massachusetts stopped taking on new criminal cases since Memorial Day, as they pushed legislators for an hourly rate increase to $100. They argued that neighboring states like New Hampshire and Maine have lower costs of living with wages well over $100 an hour, and that their work in Massachusetts has become unsustainable and unattractive to new attorneys.
But as the constitutional and public safety crisis of thousands of criminal defendants left without counsel grew — reaching a total of 3,387 unrepresented indigent defendants statewide as of Aug. 4 — the state court system imposed the Lavallee protocol in Middlesex and Suffolk counties.
Under this rule, defendants without lawyers must be released from jail after seven days, and their cases dismissed if they are not appointed a lawyer after 45 days.
The bill signed Monday then came in response. It was a deal that many bar advocates rejected , saying they played no role in negotiating and that antitrust language was "vindictive."
A statement Wednesday from the bar advocate attorneys said Healey's signing of the bill "came as no surprise."
"The degree of the administration's involvement in the process is unknown, but one thing is clear: this was an action largely dictated by a handful of people, at the very top of the state Legislature, more intent on demonstrating who is the boss, than in bringing an end to the severe constitutional crisis that was a result of their decades of neglect," the statement read.
The lawmakers "shut bar advocates out of the process entirely" and gave a "take it or leave it" solution, the advocates said.
"One thing that the Legislature didn't factor into its equation is that bar advocates are more determined than ever to make sure that constitutionally mandated obligations to their indigent clients are met, and that the fight for fair pay and a living wage for those who defend these rights continues," the statement read.
The Lavallee protocol is expected to continue as a rule in court systems until there's "huge strides and a huge drop in numbers" of unrepresented defendants, said Suffolk County bar advocate Elyse Hershon, and a filing "to reverse or undo it" made by CPCS.
But because the bar advocates are dissatisfied with legislators and how unprecedented they say the situation is, Hershon doesn't feel a Lavallee reversal will come "tomorrow or next week, and it's probably not going to be next month."
CPCS said it has "identified and interviewed numerous candidates" based off the bill's additional hiring requirement, and is "prepared to make offers to between seven and ten candidates by the end of next week."
Yet, the agency is also concerned how lawmakers' decisions will affect Massachusetts court systems.
"Whether this legislation, if signed into law, will significantly ameliorate the current shortage is unknown," a filing from CPCS on Aug. 4 reads.
And with "no end in sight" to the work stoppage following the lawmakers' decision, the crisis is likely to continue hurting Massachusetts' court system, according to Middlesex and Barnstable County bar advocate Sean Delaney.
The advocates now look to band together further by setting up a nonprofit, looking into a political action committee and retaining legal counsel for advisement on the antitrust language included in the lawmakers' bill, Delaney said.
Lavallee Protocol
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