Legal News

Bar Association Demands City Pay Lawyers Their Fees

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

Philadelphia Bar Association Chancellor Sayde Ladov called upon Mayor Michael Nutter earlier this week to immediately resume payments to lawyers who sit as civil arbitrators and take court-appointed counsel cases in the First Judicial District's criminal and family courtrooms.

Ladov, as well as Chancellor-Elect Scott Cooper and Vice Chancellor Rudy Garcia, sent the letter following an involved discussion at the Philadelphia Bar Association's Board of Governors meeting last week.

The Nutter administration suspended payments to vendors it considers non-essential because the city's cash on hand is drying up without approval in Harrisburg of a state budget and of city-specific proposals that would raise more cash through an increased sales tax rate and tinkering with how pension payments are calculated.

"The consequences of stopping payment to court-appointed counsel and arbitrators are extreme," the letter to Nutter said. "Without payment, many attorneys simply cannot afford to take on court-appointed cases or participate as an arbitrator. Further, lacking the ability to pay for investigators and associated costs, many attorneys will seek continuances, with trials being delayed and further costs incurred."
A call to Nutter's press office was not returned before this blog was posted.

Ladov also asked bar members in an open letter to the bar to continue to work on cases paid for by the government for the next 30 days. "Considering the magnitude of this budget crisis, we ask that you please stand by your clients and keep the wheels of justice moving," Ladov wrote.

Ladov said in an interview, since the city is in such a tight fiscal spot, she expects the letter to be less useful in compelling the city to resume payments and more useful in leverage in Nutter's "ongoing discussions with the commonwealth as the commonwealth attempts to put together a budget."

"The city has no money. They can't suck blood from a stone," Ladov said.

Troy Wilson, of Wilson & Wilson and chairman of the bar association's criminal justice section's subcommittee on court-appointed counsel fees, said he and other attorneys who take court-appointed counsel fees bridled at being considered vendors who provide nonessential services.

"I'm vehemently against the city just unilaterally without any negotiations ? deciding to cut the fees," Wilson said. Wilson argued that it is unfair that all other members of the justice system are being paid, while court-appointed counsel who take the cases of indigent defendants who can't be represented by the Defender Association of Philadelphia are being asked to work for free.

Wilson said he will not be taking any more court-appointed counsel cases or sitting as an arbitrator until payments resume because he said he can't afford to run his practice and not get paid for those cases.

Wilson said he will continue to represent assigned counsel clients he is already representing because it is his ethical duty to do so.

Wilson also said he knows court-appointed counsel who have asked for continuances in their cases because they have not been able to adequately prepare defenses for their clients.

There are 250 to 300 attorneys who participated in the court assigned counsel list, Wilson said.

Even before the city stopped payments on attorney fees, there already was a lawsuit pending in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania over the rates attorneys receive in assigned counsel cases. An emergency motion was filed by plaintiffs in that case last week seeking court compulsion of the payment of the assigned counsel fees.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on August 07, 2009 (boomark / email).