Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

PS: Most court appointed attorneys are still waiting for pay for work done in FY16

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Dear CPCS Private Assigned Counsel,

We are reaching out to you today to provide a further update on the status of available funds to pay all bills for services rendered in Fiscal Year 2016 (July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2016). All Fiscal Year 2016 bills received and in good order through August 1st will be transmitted for payment today as regularly scheduled.

We are very sorry to report that despite the recent supplemental funding which allowed us to resume paying Fiscal Year 2016 bills, CPCS currently has sufficient funding for only a small portion of the remaining FY16 bills regularly scheduled for payment to private bar attorneys by transmission in the state’s accounting system on August 22nd. In addition, please know that Fiscal Year 2016 funds to pay attorneys for court cost expenses like copying and postage have also recently been fully expended. We will therefore need a further supplemental funding bill to pay for all services provided through June 30th.

While the Legislature has ended its 2016 Formal Sessions, informal sessions at which funds can be appropriated continue every week.  We continue to work diligently with Senate and House of Representatives leadership to convey the emergency nature of this situation and how it unfairly impacts our attorneys.  We will keep you posted on this process and will inform you right away when supplemental funding for FY16 bills becomes available.

In the meantime, please be assured that we are processing all bills received and in good order for service dates in Fiscal Year 2017, which began July 1, 2016.  All FY17 bills are being paid according to the regular schedule.
Thank you for your patience.
Committee for Public Counsel Services
44 Bromfield Street
Boston, MA 02108
[This is the email sent to all attorneys who take court appointments for the indigent – I happen to be fully paid for FY2016 – but I billed before the end of Junel.  those who billed a few days later are mostly unpaid, per my understanding.]
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Comments

  1. …for attorneys to refuse further appointments until they are paid for previous ones, or even go so far as to unionize? Of course carried to its logical extreme that would mean denying defendants representation and/or a speedy trial so I must admit I’m at a loss as to how to balance these competing values.

    • Is every person admitted to the MA bar liable to be appointed? Just those who specialize in criminal defense? Do willing attorneys put their names in a pool from which to draw? Could we do in MA what the Missouri Chief Public Defender did and appoint elected officials who are attorneys in order to drive home the point. (The MO Public Defender blames Gov. Nixon for lack of funds and retaliated by appointed the Gov. to represent a defendant since the Gov. is an attorney.)

  3. The right to be appointed counsel is constitutional in nature if you prove indigence. A form called the Affidavit of Indigency is used, and an oral exam by a judge, called a colloquy. If there is a danger of incarceration, or a statute or case has determined the harm a pro se [person in a court case with no attorney] could suffer is high enough. So children receive court appointed counsel if removed from their homes by the state, or their parents take them to court for being ‘stubborn children” – yes there really is a law like that – or indigent parents have their children removed…or the parent files against their child for being stubborn and a judge puts that child – maybe to the parents shock – in a halfway house…or a parent agrees to a guardianship, then wants their child back and the guardian says no…I don’t do any criminal work, my appointed cases deal solely with troubled families and children.

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