Assigned counsel attys rally for better pay
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Assigned counsel attorneys rally in front of the governor’s Manhattan office for a pay increase, which hasn’t been seen in 18 years. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
Attorneys representing indigent clients and children in Family Court, including a handful from Queens, rallied in Manhattan and Long Island Thursday to call for a pay raise after not seeing a wage increase in nearly two decades.
Lawyers on Assigned Counsel Plan panels, also known as 18-B, marched in front of Governor Kathy Hochul’s Manhattan office and in front of Nassau County Family Court to demand a wage increase after previous demands were ignored in the state’s recently passed budget.
Sharing their disappointment in the governor, the attorneys, who make around $75 per hour, also turned their sights toward a bill in the state legislature that would see their hourly rate jump to $150 – a compensation that measures up to the pay assigned counsel in federal court receives.
The stagnant wages have resulted in an inability to bring new lawyers into the panel and has discouraged attorneys on the panel from staying put, the attorneys say.
“The assigned counsel rate for Family Court attorneys has been stuck at $75 for 18 years, and this has meant that it's been harder to retain and recruit attorneys to be on the panel to represent indigent litigants, who are the most vulnerable members of our society,” said Joel Serrano, an attorney and member of the Queens County Bar Association.
“We're trying to bring attention to this issue so we could get an increase and benefit the families of New York,” Serrano added.
The Queens attorney has been on the borough’s assigned counsel panel since 2010 and he said that through the years, he’s seen the panel’s number dwindle.
There are currently around 90 attorneys sitting on the panel in Queens, though there were around 110 when he first joined 12 years ago.
The trend is seen throughout the state – the number of attorneys participating in the Attorneys for Children program, who receive the same rate as 18-B attorneys, has fallen by nearly 30 percent since 2018, according to Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks.
With the number of participating lawyers falling, those on the panel have seen an increase in their workload, the attorneys say. Ultimately the litigant suffers the consequences, they say. Large caseloads mean less time with clients. Mounting caseloads could lead to an inability to take on new clients, who, in New York State, have the legal right to an attorney.
Of the 54 attorneys on the 18-B panel in Manhattan, 15 are currently not taking on new clients because of an increased caseload, according to Phillip Katz, a Manhattan attorney on the 18-B panel. Around 10 18-B attorneys in Queens have stopped intake, according to Serrano.
“There's not enough of us to do this work,” Katz said. “Families have [Administration for Children's Services] coming into their homes, ACS removes children and we have to be there to defend these families to defend these children. But we're not there because there's not enough of us.”
Last July, the Assigned Counsel Association of the State of New York filed a lawsuit against the state, claiming state officials had violated both the state and federal constitution by failing to provide representation to indigent litigants in criminal and family proceedings as a result of not increasing the attorneys’ wages.
The case is currently making its way through court. Most recently, the association filed a motion to ask that the judge order the state to increase the wage pending any legislative change from the state.
The attorneys had hoped that the legislative change would have come in the form of the state’s budget, which, at one point, included the wage increase – state lawmakers had included the pay bump in their one-house budget.
However, the increase was absent in the final budget, which rallying attorneys Thursday blamed on the governor.
“Governor Hochul, she's failed to get this done,” Katz said. “She went into negotiations that she invited the two parts of the legislature into, and they both walked in there with bills proposing an increase, and they walked out with those bills disappearing. Governor Kathy Hochul walked out getting $600,000 for a stadium project up in Buffalo.”
During an unrelated press conference Thursday, Hochul said that the pay increase didn’t make it into the budget because of the pending litigation.
“It's in litigation, so the budget was not the appropriate place to deal with it, but I support fair rates for those individuals,” Hochul said.
“I support fair wages for them,” she added. “Fair raise, they absolutely need this, the work they do is so critical, I support that. But there is still outstanding litigation and we are going to resolve it. So, another one of those areas I look forward to announcing the resolution to this, but my value is that these individuals deserve to be paid more.”
Even without action from the governor, the increase isn’t entirely off the table.
A bill from State Senator Jamaal Bailey is currently being weighed by the legislative body’s Committee on Finance. The bill would increase 18-B attorney pay to $150 an hour.
The issue has a supporter in Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, who called on state officials to pass Bailey’s bill during her State of the Judiciary speech in February.
“The failure of our state’s funding scheme to keep pace with any reasonable semblance of inflation has led to a statewide mass exodus of qualified assigned counsel available to take on new assignments,” DiFiore said. “This situation not only impairs court operations but harms countless litigants who are subjected to delays in the assignment of counsel, repeated adjournments of their proceedings, fewer opportunities and less time to meaningfully consult with counsel, and an overall substandard quality of representation that contributes directly to the inequitable, dehumanizing conditions identified in Secretary Johnson’s [Equal Justice in the Courts report].”
“Support of fair and adequate compensation for 18-B counsel would send a strong, clear message that the rights and interests of people of limited means are no less important than the rights and interests of financially advantaged New Yorkers,” she added.
