Following the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision not to get involved in bar advocates’push for higher pay, those attorneys are turning their focus to state lawmakers.
The state’s high court ruled Monday that setting pay for private attorneys in the public defense system is the exclusive authority of the legislature. Now, many bar advocates hope the recently created Massachusetts Association of Private Appointed Counsel (MAPAC) will help them appeal to lawmakers in a targeted way.
Bar advocates, who are private attorneys, represent clients who are unable to afford their own attorney. They are private-sector versions of public defenders, who are employed by the state.
Sean Delaney is a longtime bar advocate in Massachusetts and the president of MAPAC. He said it’s the only organization that truly advocates for bar advocates in the state.
“We’re the organization now that stands up for, advocates for bar advocates,” Delaney told GBH News. “We’re the only entity in the state that does that. That, coupled with what we heard all summer — that the legislature didn’t know who to talk to. Well, now you do. And we’re it.”
The MAPAC was first launched last fall as a nonprofit to serve as a unified voice advocating for the state’s 2,600 bar advocates.
Delaney said the MAPAC will explain the key role bar advocates play in the state’s system of justice. “We preserve the right to counsel in Massachusetts for poor defendants,” he said.
Delaney plans to hire a lobbyist to help secure a seat at the table with lawmakers, particularly the Senate President, Speaker of the House and both chairs of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means.
A statement from a spokesperson for Senate President Spilka said Monday’s court decision allows the Senate to continue rebalancing the ratio of full-time public defenders to bar advocates. The statement said the decision “affirms the importance and wisdom of separation of powers in the Massachusetts Constitution, and the Senate President appreciates the Court’s clear statement.”
Ana Vivas, a spokesperson for the House, in a statement highlighted last year’s pay increase for bar advocates and the increased budget for the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the agency that oversees the state public defender system.
“As the Court confirmed, the actions that the Legislature took to address this issue have successfully mitigated the impact that the bar advocate stoppage had on the Commonwealth’s criminal justice system,” Vivas wrote.
But bar advocates believe they are entitled to more, and Adela Aprodu said that a lack of access to lawmakers has been the biggest barrier so far.
“We’re lawyers. We’re not politicians,” she said. “We didn’t know how things worked. We had known that for 20 years, we didn’t get a response. That every year when they promised a raise we didn’t get it.
“I think bar advocates at that point became fed up and did what they did,” she added, referring to last summer, when they refused to take on new clients until getting a pay raise. “But our hope is that we can mend fences with the legislature.”
She’s been a bar advocate since 2019 and described the intense emotional and physical toll her work sometimes takes. After winning a recent trial where a client was facing the minimum mandatory sentence, she says she vomited for 10 minutes on her way home due to the stress and pressure of that particular case on top of the other cases on her plate.
“And that’s after you succeed. So, it takes a large toll on you,” Aprodu said, who also serves as vice president of MAPAC. “People that do this work, they do it because they care about the system and they do it because they care about their clients. We hold client’s lives in our hands.”
State legislatures agreed to raise the hourly pay for bar advocates by $20 over two years. A $10 increase went into effect last August and another $10 raise will occur this August. That will raise the pay for district court cases to $85 per hour; for murder cases the new rate will be $140 per hour.
Compared to other states, that’s still the “bottom of the barrel,” said Veronica White, a bar advocate for 28 years and treasurer of MAPAC.
The hourly rate for bar advocates in Maine is $158; in New Hampshire it’s between $125-$150; and in Rhode Island, the range is $112-$142.
Bar advocates felt that raise was too little, too late. White said she has been refusing cases for 14 months, and only recently submitted an application to begin accepting cases again.
That refusal from many bar advocates to accept new cases — bar advocates handle 80% of the indigent caseload — led to a backlog of more than 4,000 unrepresented defendants last August. Today, there is no longer a backlog of people needing assignment of counsel.
“Essentially, this is not a labor dispute that we’re dealing with,” White said. “This is a policy failure with public safety consequences.”
Robert McGovern, communications director with the Committee for Public Counsel Services, said the agency is going to continue its advocacy efforts on Beacon Hill to ensure that private attorneys who take cases are compensated appropriately for their “hugely important work.”
“This effort is also essential to recruiting enough talented private attorneys interested in taking our cases,” McGovern said in a written statement. “Defending our clients’ rights is a privilege, and we will continue doing everything we can to ensure they have the best possible advocates in their corner.”
Earlier this week, CPCS staff and public defenders pleaded their case to lawmakers for the right to unionize and advocate for higher pay.
