Public defender labor contracts expire as potential strike looms
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Union members of Brooklyn Defender Services picket outside their office as their labor contract expires. Photo courtesy of BDS union
By Noah Powelson
Labor contracts for some of the city’s largest public defender organizations expired at midnight on Tuesday, raising the possibility for over 1,000 attorneys to walk off the job if a deal isn’t reached soon.
Five public defender organizations’ collective bargaining agreements came to an end Tuesday night as management for each organization was unable to reach a deal with their respective unions – all of which are part of the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys, UAW Local 2325.
None of the UAW chapters had voted to authorize a strike as of print time but provisions in the contracts allow for union members to continue working until a deal has been reached. But with the contracts expired, the unions could call for a strike at any moment.
The largest of the organizations is Brooklyn Defender Services, the second largest public defense group in the city. BDS employs hundreds of attorneys and staff in Queens.
On Tuesday afternoon, BDS employees led two separate pickets in Brooklyn and Queens, calling on management to make several concessions in a new contract.
The union is demanding a higher wage floor for all staff, improved health insurance, and additional options to work from home, among other demands.
Forrest Stakelum, a BDS union bargaining committee member, said that management has refused to budge on many of the union’s key issues.
“Our contract has reached its expiration date because management has made little to no movement on their side,” Stakelum told the Eagle in a statement. “We find it difficult to believe management is interested in bargaining in good faith to reach a fair contract when they have refused to include numerous key protections and benefits that other organizations have.”
“These are core issues to our members that management must provide before we can come to an agreement,” Stakelum added.
BDS has more than 750 staff members on its books, according to the nonprofit, including around 120 employees it received after it absorbed Queens Defenders’ criminal defense contract in June 2025 when the Queens organization's former executive director, Lori Zeno, was ousted from the company and later arrested on fraud charges.
A spokesperson for BDS said that as of Tuesday, it was business as usual as both sides continued to bargain.
“Both BDS and the union have agreed to continue bargaining past the deadline,” the spokesperson for BDS told the Eagle.
In the weeks leading up to the deadline, BDS union members repeatedly said they were ready to tell their members to walk out of the office if management didn’t budge. They maintained that message on Tuesday, but no hard plans to hold a strike authorization vote were announced.
“Nothing is off the table,” Stakelum told the Eagle. “Our members are willing to do whatever it takes to get a fair contract.”
Andrew Eichen, the BDS union co-chair and senior attorney in the organization’s civil practice, would not comment on any possible strike plans.
The BDS contract expired at the same time as collective bargaining agreements expired between Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, Bronx Defenders, Center for Family Representation and Catholic Migration Services, and their respective ALAA unions.
In all, over 2,000 attorneys and legal aid staffers are negotiating new salaries this month. That includes 1,000 attorneys at the Legal Aid Society whose contract does not expire this year but who are able to negotiate new wages.
The New York offices of Neighborhood Defender Services, which represents low-income residents in Harlem, the Bronx and parts of Detroit and San Antonio, also picketed outside Manhattan courthouses on Tuesday as their contract expired.
Like the BDS union, the union that represents NDS is calling for a higher wage floor that’s competitive with other organizations. Health insurance premiums are also at the core of the labor contract dispute, the union said.
“We want to make clear that our priorities of no rollbacks to existing healthcare offerings and
competitive salaries are both realistic and reasonable,” Lisa Ohta, president of the ALAA. “The NDS Union and ALAA - UAW Local 2325 remain committed to the work of public defense and look forward to creating a better world for our members and our clients alike.”
While smaller in scale, a mass public defender strike between the five organizations would echo a similar labor dispute that unfolded last year and threatened to disrupt city courts.
In summer 2025, nine different public defender organizations that represented over 2,000 attorneys and legal staff had their labor contracts expire on the same day. The timing was intentional — the various union shops arranged for their contracts to expire at the same time to put pressure on the city.
The largest of the group was the union that represents the Legal Aid Society, the city’s largest public defender organization.
Eight different legal aid organizations walked off the job at various points in July 2025, bringing 750 attorneys and staff to the picket line. Each had similar demands for higher wages and health care benefits.
Legal Aid Society attorneys threatened to join, and members even overwhelmingly voted to go on strike, but a deal was reached at the last minute.
The other various union shops likewise, at different points, agreed on new contracts, and the threat of a mass strike bringing the courts to a halt passed without materializing.
This year’s labor negotiations between public defender groups and their unions also stalled out after delays to state and city budgets left the future funding uncertain.
Public defender organizations have repeatedly said they would invest in higher wages for their staff, but the city historically underfunds public defender groups compared to their prosecutor counterparts or law enforcement.
At a March City Council budget hearing, officials with The Legal Aid Society, BDS, New York County Defender Services and the Bronx Defenders said they needed between $100 and $150 million in additional funding to hire new attorneys and retain their current numbers.
Lisa Schreibersdorf, the executive director of BDS set to retire at the end of the year, previously told the Eagle BDS continued to make counter offers to their union over the past months despite uncertain funding from the city.
