The Massachusetts House wants to bid out batch contracts for flat fee representation in criminal cases – think I am kidding? Check it out in Outside Sections 81 & 82 here. You have to wonder what Anthony Lewis would have had to say; sure wish he were still here to SAY it – SAY that Gideon’s trumpet has a mute stuffed up its brass opening.
Access to justice is fundamental to having liberty and the rule of law. Hint – flat fee batch contracts have failed everywhere else – Louisiana style justice here we come! Civil liberties, civil rights, who cares in Massachusetts – not our House of Representatives IF they pass this.
I guess they think “These are, after all, the undeserving poor and if they are accused, they MUST be guilty, why do they deserve attorneys anyway”! Plenty of money for prisons – none for insuring equity or fundamental fairness, not really, all we need is window dressing justice. I am sick, sick, sick of the cheapening of justice in this state.
Can you please explain what this is compared what is currently the case and how it affects the cases and access to justice?
Currently, there are tough standards, over sight, and individual attorneys who bill each case separately. Section 81 and 82 would change that to batch bids, and flat fees that are not related to the case – no matter how many hours are worked, the pay would be the same, and lowest bidder would get batches of cases and all the standards and work and over sight would be gone. McJustice as opposed to appointed counsel. Does that help you understand?
appointed counsel in capital cases got a flat fee (for many years it was a paltry amount, about $1,000, which a decent lawyer would exceed in billing in one day). Many of them were lawyers chosen randomly from bar rolls who had never done a criminal case in their lives. Real estate closing lawyers and the like. When there’s a flat fee and it’s low, it’s hard to do work beyond a certain number of hours. Since this would go to the lowest bidder, the fees necessarily will be low. The batch aspect is troubling as well. It makes it much less likely any particular case will get the level of attention it deserves.
Again, I didn’t vote for an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature so we could become Louisiana. If I wanted to live in a third-world state, I’d move to one.