The ongoing work stoppage by the public defender attorneys who are part of what is known as the Bar Advocates program needs to be resolved by the legislature as soon as possible.
The Bar Advocates are private attorneys who are court-appointed by a judge to represent indigent defendants in all sorts of cases, most notably criminal and mental health matters. An attorney who is a member of the Bar Advocate program chooses one or two days per month in a district court on which they will be available to take cases of defendants. A Bar Advocate typically is assigned to a defendant at the time of a defendant’s first appearance in the courtroom, which usually is at the arraignment.
However, for the past four weeks or so, many of the Bar Advocates informally have agreed to stop taking on new clients for a very simple reason: Their compensation rate of $65 per hour is a joke — a pathetic joke.
Massachusetts compensates its Bar Advocates at a pittance compared to neighboring states such as Rhode Island ($112 per hour), New Hampshire ($125 per hour), and Maine and New York ($150 per hour).
The $65 rate in the Commonwealth of Mass. is not even half of the average of those other states.
As a result of the refusal of many Bar Advocates to take new assignments (we would note that they still are providing representation to their current clients), judges are either releasing defendants who are being held on bail or dismissing their cases without prejudice because the law mandates that these defendants must receive hearings within a certain number of days at which they are entitled to have legal representation.
Even though a dismissal of charges without prejudice means that the district attorney can refile the case at a later time, the bottom line is that many defendants who may pose a threat to public safety are being released, which obviously is not a good thing.
How the legislature and the governor allowed us to get to this point is irrelevant — finger pointing is a useless exercise. However, both the legislature and the governor have the ability to rectify the situation by very simply raising the compensation for Bar Advocates to a rate comparable to our neighboring states.
Bar Advocates, who have spent tens of thousands of dollars to obtain a law degree, are not even being treated as an after-thought by the governor and the legislature. The Bar Advocates are being taken for granted, with the result that public safety — and justice — are being sacrificed to the detriment of every citizen of our state.