State House OK's raises for lawyers for poor
The Massachusetts House yesterday unanimously approved higher pay rates for lawyers who represent the poor, acting a day after the Senate approved a similar measure to help halt a growing crisis in the courts.
House lawmakers voted to give court-appointed lawyers the same rate increases the Senate did -- to $100 an hour from $61.50 for homicide cases; to $60 per hour from $46.50 for nonhomicide Superior Court cases, including sexually dangerous persons cases; and to $50 per hour from $37.50 for district court cases and children in need of services cases, as well as children and family law cases, sex offender registry, and mental health cases.
Also, the plan lowers the cap on the number of hours each attorney, known as a bar advocate, could bill for compensation from 1,850 hours annually to 1,400. Supporters of lowering the cap say it would spread out the work to more attorneys and prevent some from burning out from too much work.
But some bar advocates immediately decried the cap as an overall pay cut, since the number of overall hours they could earn money on would be reduced.
''In order to do this work well, you have to do it a lot," said Joss Filiault, an attorney from Concord who worked about 1,800 hours as a bar advocate during the last fiscal year. ''It's difficult work that requires expertise. There seems to be an attitude in the Legislature that it's bad to do this work as your primary work. I don't understand that."
House leaders defended the change, saying an attorney working full time as a bar advocate representing indigent defendants would earn $70,000 a year taking cases in District Court and $84,000 in Superior Court under the new pay structure. Additionally, House leaders said working as a bar advocate was never meant to be a full-time position.
Bar advocate pay issues came to a head three weeks ago after two-thirds of the lawyers who represent indigent defendants in Middlesex and Suffolk counties refused to sign up again. More than 300 defendants statewide have faced criminal charges without a lawyer since July 1, according to the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state public defender agency.
Material from the State House News Service was used in this report 
