The New York panel’s attorneys have not received a pay rise since 2004, when their hourly rates were set at $75 for felony and family law cases, and $60 for felony crimes. Even if those amounts had simply increased with inflation, they’d be about $114 and $93 per hour.
Panel attorneys in South Dakota, where the cost of living is half that in New York, are paid $101 an hour.
Because these attorneys are independent contractors, not affiliated with organizations like the Legal Aid Society or Bronx Defenders, they must pay for their own health care, office space, and other expenses, further reducing their effective salaries.
As a result, there are fewer lawyers willing to fill these high-stakes, stressful jobs.
Cynthia Godsoe, a Brooklyn Law School professor who previously worked in family court, said the failure to raise rates reflected the fundamental indifference of New York City’s political authorities to the lives of the most vulnerable.
“The family court, where these lawsuits take place, is by definition a poor human court,” she said. “Failing to pay these attorneys close to what they need to do a good job reflects either ignorance or disregard for those people’s fundamental rights as parents and their lives as families.”
In Manhattan alone, the number of panel attorneys available to hear new cases in family court has nearly halved in the past six years, from 70 to 39. In the Bronx, the number dropped from 80 to 48 from 80 during that period. January 2021 added only one new panel attorney. Brooklyn and Queens have each lost about a fifth of their panel attorneys since 2011.
Due to the lack of lawyers, those who remain hugely overworked, with some refusing to take on new cases at all. If no lawyers are available, a catastrophe often follows. In a letter filed in court, a panel attorney, Fredericka Bashir, said the fallout often included:
Victims of domestic violence receive no protection from abusers, leaving those people vulnerable to being harmed again.
Children held in foster care because there were no lawyers to seek their return to their parents or guardians.
People who are falsely accused of domestic violence and who, because of a protection order, have been forced to leave their home without being heard in court.
When she was called to explain last week, Ms. Bashir was, of course, in the middle of a trial. When she was able to speak, she gave a specific example of a client who had gone to court several times without a lawyer, seeking protection from a live-in boyfriend.
