Leaders of some of the city’s largest public defense organizations warned last week that without at least $100 million in additional city funding, they’ll risk an exodus of attorneys that would leave low-income New Yorkers struggling to secure legal representation.
Read MoreOne of the city’s top public defender organizations recently faced backlash from its union after an announced candidate for director of their immigration practice sparked outrage.
Read MoreAttorneys at the city’s second-largest public defense group voted this week to formally call on their executive director to resign after she allegedly tried to break up their union.
Read MoreLabor tensions escalated on Thursday as elected city officials and union members called for the executive director of the city’s second-largest public defense group to step down, less than a week after she was accused of attempting to break up her organization’s attorneys’ union.
Read MoreLori Zeno, the former head of Queens Defenders accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars with her husband from the nonprofit she founded, has continued to siphon money from the organization as she awaits trial, according to the feds.
Read MoreThe boss of a top New York City public defense group tried to break up her organization's own attorney union by urging a lawyer to launch a competing one, union leaders alleged on Friday.
Read MoreThe organization that took over Queens Defenders legal defense contract continues to see problems, after union members took to the picket line again in response to new work policies.
Read MorePublic defense attorneys alleged on Tuesday that the Department of Correction consistently violates the rights of detainees by making it difficult for them to meet with their lawyers while being held on Rikers Island.
Read MoreAttorneys at Brooklyn Defender Services, the legal services group that absorbed Queens Defenders’ criminal practice last month, picketed their employer on Thursday over a recent change in employment policy.
Read MoreQueens Defenders officially had its criminal defense practice taken over by a Brooklyn-based legal services provider on Tuesday, around three weeks after its former executive director was arrested on federal fraud charges.
Read MoreAs negotiations over changes to the state’s evidence-sharing laws hold up the passage of the state’s budget in Albany, a recent criminal case in Queens appears to highlight the core of the debate over discovery.
Read MoreQueens Defenders, the World’s Borough’s largest public defender organization, is facing an uncertain future after the city said that it no longer trusted the firm to carry out the promise of a $32 million contract to provide criminal defense to low-income New Yorkers in Queens.
Read MoreThe New York State attorney general, a top bar association, scores of public defense organizations, several former New York City officials and a criminal justice nonprofit all called on a federal judge to strip control over Rikers Island away from the city and hand it over to a court-appointed receiver.
Read MoreThe city’s Department of Correction has again been accused of not providing medical care to detainees after three law firms representing the incarcerated population on Rikers Island filed a motion to have a judge hold the agency in contempt for skirting its mandated duties.
Read More“While there are other contributing forces to this shameful situation…there is no doubt that the driving cause behind it remains the decision of your offices to seek bail recklessly and in virtually every eligible case.”
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