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"What kind of lawyer goes on strike?" asks attorney of Public Defender, me.
This morning, I received a letter from a Philadelphia private criminal defense attorney who took issue with my most recent Man Overboard! column.
"What kind of lawyer goes on strike?" asks attorney of Public Defender, me.
Follow Isaiah Thompson and his column, Man Overboard, on Twitter.
This morning, I received a letter from a Philadelphia private criminal defense attorney who took issue with my most recent Man Overboard! column, about the Philadelphia Public Defenders Association "boycott" of three rooms in the Criminal Justice Center. We usually save this kind of feedback for the occasional "Letters to the editor" section, but I thought it was a timely, thoughtful response and might spark more conversation (maybe, even, another article). So I've reprinted it below.
A quick sum-up: for several weeks now, the Philadelphia Defenders Association has refused to staff three CJC courtrooms in protest of what Chief Defender Ellen Greenlee calls insufficient support from the city. The Public Defenders are currently 20-some lawyers understaffed, she says, and have have gone since 2007 without a raise from the city -- a bitter pill to swallow, since it sure appears that attorneys working for the Philadelphia District Attorney's office have been getting raises.
Indigent defendants, of course, have a right to an attorney -- and so the court has been forced by the boycott to appoint private attorneys, who receive a low fee to represent defendants who would normally be served by the Public Defender. As I noted in my column, I've been contacted by several attorneys (not just public defenders), who feel that some of these court-appointed private attorneys have been providing sloppy representation.
I wrote:
... The standoff is costing more than just dollars. Several lawyers — both public defenders and private attorneys — have contacted CP with stories of sloppy and borderline-improper representation by (some of) the private hires, who get a (low) fixed fee for cases and have very different institutional motives than public defenders. The stories range from lawyers failing to convey plea offers to clients to lawyers advising clients to take pleas on the fly, in front of the entire courtroom, to attorneys just not giving a crap what happens. “They have a paying client on [another] floor,” as one defender put it. “And that person is taking precedence.”
In response to the article, Gary S. Server, Esq., a private criminal defense attorney, wrote the following (reprinted with permission):
I think it is totally unfair to label private court appointed attorneys together like you did. I, and many others, can recite observed instances of borderline and sloppy representation by public defenders, but we won't stoop to that level.
What kind of lawyer goes out on strike? We have Rules of Professional Responsibility that countenance against abandoning one's duties. Do not the PD's have a duty to represent the indigent? What happened to professional responsibility at that office? Perhaps the Chief Defender and her staff need to rethink what they are doing to the detriment of the public they are supposed to be serving. If they really cared about the indigent and the Court they would continue to do their duty, like the private bar does in the face of great adversity and disrespect!
As for private counsel earning all of these fees, it would have been nice if you had mentioned how we weren't paid for the entire month of July due to some political infighting between the City and the Court and how we didn't strike. Or how a few years ago we went for three months without being paid due to the state legislature failing to pass a budget and we didn't strike. And how court appointed fees for most types of cases have not seen an increase since before the last time the PD's got their raise.
Next time you write an article like this you should do a little more research and make it a little more fair and balanced.
Gary S. Server, Esquire
Other than to note that I did try to be careful to write that I'd heard complaints about "some of" the private attorneys being appointed these cases, and that I didn't mean to suggest that all, or most, or even many of these attorneys aren't doing their best, I thought it was an interesting letter that poses a challenging question to the Public Defenders office (and me).
So, lawyers: please weigh in!
(You can reach me privately here)
This morning, I received a letter from a Philadelphia private criminal defense attorney who took issue with my most recent Man Overboard! column, about the Public Defender's "strike" or "boycott" of three rooms in the Criminal Justice Center.
We usually save this kind of feedback for the occasional "Letters to the editor" section, but I thought it was a timely, thoughtful response and might spark more conversation (maybe, even, another article). So I've reprinted it below.
A quick sum-up: for several weeks now, the Philadelphia Public Defender's Association has refused to staff three courtrooms in protest of what Chief Defender Ellen Greenlee calls insufficient support from the city. The Public Defenders are currently 20-some lawyers understaffed, she says, and have have gone since 2007 without a raise from the city -- a bitter pill to swallow, since it sure appears that attorneys working for the Philadlephia District Attorney's office have been getting raises.
Indigent defendants, of course, have a right to an attorney -- and so the court has been forced by the boycott to appoint private attorneys, who receive a low fee to represent defendants who would normally be served by the Public Defender. As I noted in my column, I've been contacted by several attorneys (not just public defenders), who feel that some of these court-appointed private attorneys have been providing sloppy representation.
In response to the article, Gary S. Server, Esq., a private criminal defense attorney, wrote the following (reprinted with permission):
I think it is totally unfair to label private court appointed attorneys together like you did. I, and many others, can recite observed instances of borderline and sloppy representation by public defenders, but we won't stoop to that level.
What kind of lawyer goes out on strike? We have Rules of Professional Responsibility that countenance against abandoning one's duties. Do not the PD's have a duty to represent the indigent? What happened to professional responsibility at that office? Perhaps the Chief Defender and her staff need to rethink what they are doing to the detriment of the public they are supposed to be serving. If they really cared about the indigent and the Court they would continue to do their duty, like the private bar does in the face of great adversity and disrespect!
As for private counsel earning all of these fees, it would have been nice if you had mentioned how we weren't paid for the entire month of July due to some political infighting between the City and the Court and how we didn't strike. Or how a few years ago we went for three months without being paid due to the state legislature failing to pass a budget and we didn't strike. And how court appointed fees for most types of cases have not seen an increase since before the last time the PD's got their raise.
Next time you write an article like this you should do a little more research and make it a little more fair and balanced.
Gary S. Server, Esquire
In a prviate response to Mr. Server, I noted that I had trie dot be careful to write that I'd heard complaints about "some of" the private attorneys being appointed these cases, and that I didn't mean to suggest that all, or most, or even many of these attorneys aren't doing their best.
But, other than that, I thought it was an interesting letter that poses a challenging question to the Public Defender's office (and me).
So, lawyers: please weigh in!
(You can reach me privately here)
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