Queens assigned counsel panel holds recruitment drive
/From left to right, Indira Khan, Frank Kelly, Vivian Cedeno, Anne D’Elia and Scott Davis share their experience and answer questions about working on the Queens Assigned Counsel panel. Eagle photo by Noah Powelson
By Noah Powelson
It’s been over a year since lawsuits against New York State resulted in the first pay raises for assigned counsel attorneys in decades, but the Queens 18-B Assigned Counsel panel is still looking to bolster their numbers for 2025.
In the back room of the Sanger Hall restaurant and bar in Sunnyside, attorneys, prosecutors and judges from private and public practice alike gathered to network and hear from a panel of assigned counsel attorneys about the benefits, responsibilities and risks that come with their job.
Assigned counsel attorneys, commonly referred to as 18-B attorneys, represent low-income clients and children. Panelists, who included Frank Kelly, the supervisory attorney for the Second Department, encouraged all attendees to apply saying there are few positions that offer the flexibility, experience and a close community like working on an 18-B panel.
Other panelists said few legal jobs are as rewarding.
“I knew that as an Hispanic female, hearing the Latino clients constantly coming in and not having someone who spoke their language, I would hear them and I would think to myself, ‘You know, I might just be able to better help them if I’m a defense attorney,” Viviano Cedeno, who worked for the Queens 18-B panel for years, said. “So it was twofold: it was helping clients, and it was my children.”
But as much as the panelists said their work provided a vital road for their career, they were also open with the challenges prospective 18-B attorneys should know before they get involved.
Panelists said independence also comes with its own burden. Attorneys are responsible for managing their own schedules and billing their own cases, and panelists said it is easy to overwork and underpay yourself when you first start out. 18-B attorneys also commonly work with severely mentally ill clients who are, at times, unwilling to listen to legal counsel, which present some of the most difficult cases an attorney can face.
Panelists also didn’t shy away from the pay issues 18-B attorneys face, especially when first starting out.
“You got to see the pros and the cons, you got to have some sort of money in the bank,” Anne D’Elia, a private attorney who works on an 18-B panel, said. “You’re not going to walk into the court the first day, pick up 10 cases and now you have a business. It doesn’t work that way…You need to know you have a cushion until you build up a practice.”
D’Elia said that cases often take years until they are completed, especially homicide cases, and new attorneys could face a long wait before they can start billing their first cases.
18-B attorneys are paid by the state or the municipality in which they practice, but unlike other federal and state-employed attorneys, 18-B attorneys do not have a pay structure that increases wages over time.
18-B attorneys historically make less than private practice attorneys and even federal attorneys; an issue that legal advocacy organizations have called on lawmakers to address for years.
Governor Kathy Hochul issued the first pay raise in nearly two decades for 18-B attorneys in the 2024-2025 state budget, and while attorneys say the boost has helped to keep their colleagues on the panel, the next goal is incentivizing young attorneys to join while facing lower pay and high workloads.
The event was sponsored by the South Asian Indo-Caribbean Bar Association of Queens, the Queens County Criminal Bar Association, the Queens County Woman Bar Association, the Latino Lawyers Association and the Queens County Bar Association.