Unfortunately, I personally have no way to validate or invalidate the statistics I get from either DAs or The Committee for Public Counsel Services. According to the DAs, there are no funds they receive except staff salaries. Right. I got a bridge to sell you in Chelsea if you believe that one.
According to CPCS, the statistics are as follows:
Average number of hours billed: 950.3 = $51,600.00
Median hours billed per case: 5.46
1470 attorneys or 48.6% earned less than $50k
from court appointed work.
502 attorneys or 16.6% earned less than $15k from court appointed work.
A total of 15 attorneys (less than 1/2 a percent) earned more than 150k – and 14 of them were attorneys on the murder list who earn $100.00 per hour.
The DAs claim their poor minions toil for $37,500k a year. Leaving out health insurance and other overhead, the “Your Tax Dollars at Work” site at the Boston Herald shows a far different picture. For example, if I go to The Bristol County DAs payroll at Your Tax Dollars at workI counted 17 Assistant DAs earning about $100k or more, and quite a few in the 60k – 80k range. This is true of every county DA. Why not save money by consolidating DAs under the Attorney General and just having satelite offices instead of county DAs who earn more than the Attorney General, and have two to six full time press people each?
A very strange juxtaposition on the front page of the Boston Globe on February 14, 2011.
Both stories cannot be true – but as a small business owner myself, I will go with the real costs of new employees, not the toxic fairy tale being peddled by the DAs association.
Similary, the multi-million dollar Massachusetts District Attorney Association pretends to tremble at a “3000 strong” defense attorney lobbying machine. The idea that there is any such strong lobby from attorneys who do indigent defense is a fairy tale – and both Dan Conley and Samuel Sutter, as well as every other DA know that is a sham. Between them, the 12 DAs have more than 30 full time public relations flaks, six for Dan Conley alone.
The attorneys who contract to do indigent defense are independent professionals, spread across the Commonwealth, are the backbone of their small communities, but not wealthy and not in the habit of working as a team or lobby. On the other hand, maybe the Big Lie being repeated for three years as part of the DA’s deivide and conquer ploy will scare these folks into working together.
The Governor being sold this sham bill of goods by the DAs PR machine may just be the last straw. Maybe the DAs are creating a defense bar lobby by their onslaught against the defense bar.
As anyone who has ever done a court appointed case (criminal or child welfare or mental health) or dealt with a CPCS audit knows, there is no blank check – to see what I mean, just browse the Assigned Counsel Manual
mark-bail says
in Hampshire County, there were three people making over $100,000 in the office, including the DA herself.
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p>The better paid people were around $70,000. Others made less.
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p>Our Governor likes to leave most of his proposals in the oven for only half as long as they should be. I’d be open to a honest, data-driven discussion of the DA’s position, but as your post points out, I don’t think we’re hearing all of the facts.
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p>This would be an easier issue to demagogue if people trusted government more, but I don’t know many people in their right mind who think adding a bunch of employees and their health and retirement costs to the state payroll is a money-saver. As it is, the Globe and DA’s can cherry-pick some attorneys who bill the state what seems like a lot of money and try to make an issue where one doesn’t exist.
medfieldbluebob says
I know this is a hot issue for you. Your passion is evident and the work you’ve done to get us the facts, such as they are, is helpful here. On the surface it seems that having private sector contractors performing this work for less money is a smart move.
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p>But, I’m not sure I understand the whole process here.
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p>You are our expert on this issue. How do you get these cases? You mention that murder lawyers get $100/hr; does that mean the rates are set? Do you work for less on these cases and does the fee cover your actual costs? Who pays your bill? What are the quality controls; are your bills audited, your work reviewed by anyone? How is this work any different than your other cases? What about your support staff?
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p>I know that’s a lot of questions. But a simple comparison of your billing rate versus associate DA’s salaries is not all there is to the issue. There is a bureaucracy that handles your work; there must at least be someone who calls you to take a case. That costs us money; what is that cost?
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p>And cost is not the only issue deciding to outsource something. Quality is one issue; there are probably others.
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p>I appreciate your passion and your work on this issue.
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p>BTW, I thought we already owned the bridge in Chelsea.
dhammer says
I followed the link to the “your tax dollars at work,” here’s what it actually said:
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p>* 6 (7%), not 17 of the 125 employees listed make more than $100K.
* 25 (30%) make between 60K and 100K
* The average salary was $51K (median $45K)
* The average compensation was $44K (median $40K)- which is still 17% higher than you says the DA’s actually claim.
* 66% make less than $50K (compared to just 49% of the contractors – although that 50K doesn’t include statutory and other costs)
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p>You may have a point, but you’re not making it with the data you supply. If there’s a case to be made about independence, quality, or the like, you can make it, but the idea that it will necessarily cost more, as it’s articulated now, doesn’t hold water.
amberpaw says
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p>2. I accept child welfare cases only, so the rate for those cases is always $50.00 per hour. The way I am appointed to these cases is that I find a fax in my fax machine appointing me. There is a rotating list, and what is supposed to happen, and as far as I know, does happen is when the Department of Children and Families files a petition, and attorneys need to be appointed, if you are on the list for that kind of case and come up on the list, you get faxed an appointment. Occasionally, a desperate court employee will call and ask if I will take a case because someone withdrew or turned it down, and hearings are supposed to happen with 72 hours of filing. I pay for all my own bills, like malpractice insurance, health insurance, etc. I submit requests for payment for hours worked (doing work that is compensated for by RFP, not all is as explained below) by using a computer program on a website called “ebill” for the court appointed case work which is part of my law practice, and those requests for payment, or “RFPs” go through a computer audit, if there are anomalies, they receive a hard hand audit from an audit department run by the Committee for Public Counsel Services. The line item against which RFPs are drawn is 0321-1510 within the judiciary line items. My work is reviewed by both a Regional Representative of CPCS, and the Director of Appeals in Boston (I do trial and appellate child welfare work – remember, no criminal cases at all). I do not have any full time support staff; if I need an investigator or a translator, I pay up front. If these contractor staff hours are for private clients, the private client pays; if for appointed clients, I file vouchers against line item 0321-1520 and each kind of service has allowed rates. My private rates for doing divorces or will contests (etc are $150.00 – $250.00 per hour – I limit how much court appointed work I do at $50.00 with the goal of at least breaking even on the court appointed work). Of course, with each court appointed case there are many things that I don’t get paid for, because only part of the case is compensated in accordance with the Assigned Counsel Manual and Standards linked to in my main post. For example, there is no payment for time spent filing, billing, travel to court under an hour, wait time over an hour, or doing “more than required”.
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p>In my private cases, folks find me by word of mouth, my online website, or various referral services, they interview me, pay retainers, and if I satisfy them, I get paid and if not, I get fired and they move on. In 25 years, though, I have had clients “move on” only four times, once after a client said, “since your auto accident you are not as aggressive'” – and such is life.
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p>But cases are assigned by court staff – not CPCS. CPCS does not determine indigency – Probation officers do. In fact, CPCS has no more control over caseload increase then snow plow drivers have over snow.
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p>As to dhammer, maybe he and I round up and down differently; what I saw is that the average pay for an ADA is too low, but more than $37,500 AND that there seemed to be a significant number of folks making more money then the DAs were publicly admitting. DAs are public servants, and should not be nickle and dimed; what I don’t understand is the attack from the DAs and the misinformation/divide and conquer enmity.
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p>I happen to believe that being an American, and believing in Democracy requires a commitment to “innocent until proven guilty”.
peter-porcupine says
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p>THAT is the biggest hidden cost of adding more DA’s.
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p>Not to mention the lost business taxes and other revenue from private sector employment.
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p>There can be no apples to apples comparison between public and private – do your RATES receive annual COLA’s like DA salaries do?
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p>No, I’m afraid this is a matter of making the trains run on time – i.e., RAILROADING the inconvenient by keeping both sides of the legal question ‘in house’ for negotiation.
sethjp says
Please explain, if you would. I’m not sure that this applies in this particular situation.
peter-porcupine says
….excise tax, property tax, registration fees, licensing fees, sales tax on goods and supplies, and on and on.
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p>As a self-employed person, she ALSO pays the full 15% of employment taxes, as the Govt. sees her as both employee and employer – with no ability to deduct. She pays close to 30% of her business income in taxes, as there is no employer to pay a share.
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p>DA’s pay none of these. AND they get a defined benefit pension that they pay only a tiny fraction of – Amber can’t even afford a damn IRA…
amberpaw says
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p>2. Downsize office spaces.
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p>3. Purchase fewer office supplies and other goods.
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p>Governor Patrick’s proposal will destroy between 700 and 1500 private jobs by creating 1500 – 2400 state employee positions. These positions will all require pensions, health care, employment insurance, etc to be paid with taxpayer dollars. The current independent contractors are spread all through the state – the state employees would be mostly in Boston. Do the math.
sethjp says
… but I’m questioning the idea that it would cause a loss of business taxes.
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p>As we all learned in the debate about Obama’s initial tax plan, most small businesses owners file taxes as an individual and not as a corporation, partnership, etc. Therefor, it would seem to me, that the majority of the money that the state pays to independent lawyers would simply be subject to personal income tax. This wouldn’t change under Patrick’s plan.
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p>Now, I freely admit that you are far more expert in this arena than I. But as you just finished saying that you charge $150 an hour for your private work and only get $50/hr for the work you are discussing, I would think that a loss of your state sponsored business would free you up to actually make more money. (You mention trying to balance the two, which suggests that you don’t have a ton of free time where you aren’t working at all. I’ve always gotten the sense that you do this work despite the money, not because of it.) This would then result in greater taxes to the state. Nor would you necessarily have to lose office space or employees — you say you don’t have any full time employees, anyway. Perhaps I’m making a mistake in using you as a typical example of the lawyers who are doing this work, but your many posts on the subject have always left me with this impression.
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p>Perhaps, however, I should clarify and say that I’m questioning that it would cause a significant loss of business taxes, as Peter is correct; the State won’t be paying sales tax on it’s office supply purchases, etc. But I don’t see how the state is going to lose property tax, excise tax, registration fees, etc. or any significant amount of business taxes.
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p>I think you make many, many fine arguments for why this is a bad idea — having the DAs control both sides of the case, relative salaries, pension costs, etc. and I support your side of things — I just don’t see this loss of tax argument as being terribly compelling because I still question whether it is actually true.
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p>Again, no expert here, sadly; but I am both a small business owner and a gov’t employee and I’m simply not convinced by this line of argument.
amberpaw says
Maybe it is time to bring back the Whig party?
conseph says
RETIREMENT BENEFITS
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p>Its time to take the discussion past pensions and include retiree medical in the discussion. These unfunded liabilities have the potential to dwarf the pension issue given the growth in health care expenses (not good) and increase in life expectancies (good).
peter-porcupine says
Don’t forget, state retirees purchase supplement plans from regular carriers like Harvard/Pilgrim, Tufts, Fallon, etc. In that regard, it differs less from private sector. AND – unlike municipalities, state retirees now enroll in Medicare at age 65. Their premium participation was too low for too long, but it’s now at 20% with 25% phasing in.
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p>Because the state is not self-funding retiree health care – the way it does pensions – it’s not as debilitating, and technically it isn’t even an unfunded liability since its pay-as-you-so.