Pay-raise measure for court-appointed attorneys becomes law
Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey yesterday signed into law a bill that significantly raises the pay of court-appointed lawyers, a move expected to end a work stoppage by hundreds of attorneys that has burdened some of the busiest courts in the state.
Acting on behalf of the vacationing Governor Mitt Romney, Healey signed a measure giving so-called bar advocates their biggest pay raise in more than 20 years -- one wrung from Beacon Hill after a show of political muscle. Healey's signing of the $30-million-plus bill, the day after the bill passed the Senate, came four weeks after hundreds of lawyers in Suffolk and Middlesex counties stopped taking cases of poor criminal defendants to protest hourly rates.
The legislation also authorizes the state public defender agency, which oversees the legal services system, to hire 130 staff lawyers, some of whom will exclusively handle children and family law cases. The legislation also establishes a commission to study decriminalizing less serious offenses in an effort to reduce the need for court-appointed lawyers.
''This is a good result, with many new reforms that will improve and make more efficient the system for providing legal services to the indigent," Healey said. The Legislature, she said, recognized that ''an increase in pay alone does not address some of the serious caseload issues affecting the system."
The bill, which is retroactive to July 1, immediately raises bar advocates' pay to $100 an hour from $61.50 for homicide cases; to $60 an hour from $46.50 for nonhomicide cases; and to $50 an hour from $37.50 for district court and family law cases.
The raises follow a pay schedule recommended by a commission appointed by the governor and Legislature after a wage dispute last year led to the release of three accused drug dealers in Hampden County who had been locked up for a week without lawyers. The commission, which issued its report April 1, found that hourly pay rates in Massachusetts were among the lowest in the country, even with a modest increase last year.
Lawyers who oversee legal services for the poor lauded the administration's quick action on the bill and predicted that more than 425 private lawyers in Suffolk and Middlesex counties who refused to renew their contracts July 1 will now do so.
The dispute, which many lawyers denied was a strike but had the same effect, had left more than 600 defendants in both counties without legal representation as of this week, including at least 80 who were incarcerated, according to William J. Leahy, chief counsel for the public defender agency, the Committee for Public Counsel Services.
''It's a giant step forward," said Randy Gioia, cochairman of Suffolk Lawyers for Justice, which contracts with the state to represent poor defendants in Suffolk. ''I expect most, if not all, the lawyers will sign the contracts."
Only about one-third of the 650 private lawyers who take court-appointed criminal cases in Suffolk and Middlesex counties had renewed their contracts in the new fiscal year.
Steven J. Sack, a veteran Boston criminal defense lawyer who had stopped taking cases, said he will immediately begin doing so as a result of the raise. ''We're on our way toward getting fair compensation for our services," said Sack, who began taking court-appointed cases in 1979.
Sack and other defense lawyers noted that the commission had recommended that raises this year be followed up with increases in the next two fiscal years.
''Certainly, I think everybody who does this work hopes the Legislature follows up on the commission's other recommendations, including raising the rates gradually each year," he said.
The raises this year will cost the state between $23 million to $25 million, Leahy said, and the hiring of lawyers by the public defender agency will cost about $10 million.
In addition to the raises and hires, the legislation also caps the number of hours each lawyer can bill for compensation at 1,400 and calls for stricter verification of indigency.
The bill also establishes two commissions. In addition to the one studying decriminalizing certain offenses, another panel will consider ways to generate money for the legal services system, Leahy said.
Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com. 
