The muck that the Boston Herald scraped out of the courthouse toilets and published yesterday provides an opportunity to discuss something I’ve been meaning to post about: public defender salaries.
It seems that many people, both lawyers and non-lawyers, think that when public defenders say we make “no money,” that that’s only true by the standards of high-flying corporate executives and partners at BIGLAW. We’re still lawyers, people think, and that means we must get paid a fair heap of money, by the rest of the world’s standards. Otherwise, why would lawyers take the job?
Because we’re masochists. Because we care about what we do so much that we’re willing to do it for the peanuts that the legislature deigns to pay us.
The Herald quoted Stephanie Page’s salary at $99,000 a year, but it didn’t tell you who Stephanie is. She’s a hardened veteran of the criminal courts, with 30 years trial experience. She is, in short, a god of trial practice. If she wanted to, she could be hauling in boatloads of money as the Clarence Darrow of the 21st century.
The starting salary, for a new public defender at CPCS is $37,500. That’s what Alex and I make. It’s not a lot, especially in the Greater Boston area. Most of the new lawyers in our training class pay half their salary or more in rent.
We are not making out like bandits with your tax dollars. Nobody in the indigent defense profession is.
Posted by AndyCowan on November 19th, 2008 :: Filed under
In the NewsTags ::
About the defenders
So you may have read in the Boston Herald today that “Twice as much goes to defending suspects than to prosecuting them”. And then of course there was this companion articles on how “Court appointed lawyers are quick to support their pricey practice”.
I was a journalism student in college, so I’m familiar with the byline and how the process works. But the fact of the matter is that these two stories are just bad journalism, unsupported by any facts but the meaningless figures on a spreadsheet. Mr. Dwinell, who wrote both pieces, did little more than look at a spreadsheet, get some quotables, and write the story. He put no effort whatever at understanding what he was writing, and now misinformation is spreading throughout the city of Boston and the state of Massachusetts.
I’m not writing here to defend defense salaries, either bar advocates or CPCS attorneys. From my point of view, we are all vastly underpaid for the services we provide, which has its own ripple effect throughout the criminal defense system. We do this not out of love of money, but for something greater.
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Posted by Alex Ramos on November 18th, 2008 :: Filed under
In the NewsTags ::
bad journalism,
media criticism,
miscommunications
From Arizona State University, a war story of a different kind:
Cat Burglar [with baseball bat]: “Give me your wallet”
1L: [complies]
Cat Burglar: “And your guitars”
1L: [Complies]
Cat Burglar: “I think I’ll take the laptop too.”
The dialogue is fictionalized, but the event is real. Below is an actual, verbatim exchange between the two:
1L: “Dude, no — please, no! I have all my case notes…that’s four months of work!”
Cat Burglar: “I’m going to smash your head in!”
Whereupon, 1L wrestles cat burglar’s baseball bat out of his hands and proceeds to beat the everliving snot out of him.
Think about that. He could have had the dude’s wallet and guitars, no questions asked. Because he got greedy, he got a few stitches and some felony charges.
ASU Law Student Botsios’ comment to reporters is something any law student, or former law student, can appreciate: “Don’t mess with my computer. It’s my baby.”
Posted by AndyCowan on November 18th, 2008 :: Filed under
In the News,
War StoriesTags ::
not my client,
old fashioned beatdown
You get arrested and the bail commissioner at the police station sets bail. You post the money. You go to court when you’re supposed to. The judge says you’re released on your personal recognizance, and you set a date to come back for a pretrial hearing.
Now you’re released on recognizance. That means you get your bail money back, right?
Not in Lowell. Here, “personal recognizance” means “whatever terms you were previously released on.”
As one clerk put it, we wouldn’t want to mess up our system with legal details.
If you’re an attorney in another jurisdiction, do they do this in your court?
Posted by AndyCowan on November 12th, 2008 :: Filed under
A Day in the Life,
Client ServiceTags ::
almost but not quite entirely unlike law,
things that don't quite make sense
The new Massachusetts law that decriminalizes possession of small quantities of marijuana doesn’t take effect til December 5, but Mass Live reports that the Hampden County DA plans to respect the vox populi by dropping all simple possession charges of an ounce or less.
Thank you, William Bennett.
Update the Lowell Sun reports that Middlesex DA Gerry Leone will continue to prosecute MJ cases as long as he can.
Who’s up next?
Posted by AndyCowan on November 12th, 2008 :: Filed under
In the NewsTags ::
drugs,
good news