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Standard One: Compensation of Attorney and Staff
- American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice, Standard 5-2.4:
- its staff, employees and subcontractors at rates commensurate with their training, experience and responsibilities and with compensation paid to persons doing similar work in public agencies in the jurisdiction, and
- attorneys at a minimum rate which reflects the following factors:
- The customary compensation in the community for similar services rendered by privately retained counsel to a non-indigent client or by government or other publicly-paid attorneys to a public client;
- the time and labor required to be spent by the attorney; and
- the degree of professional ability, skill, and experience called for and exercised in the performance of the services.
- the caseload assigned to the Contractor exceeds the allowable caseloads specified through the process recommended in Guideline III-5; or
- the Contractor is assigned more cases requiring an extraordinary amount of time and preparation than the Contractor can competently handle oven with payment of extraordinary compensation as specified in Guideline III-11; or
- the cases assigned to the Contractor exceed any number that the contract specified or that the Contractor and Contracting Authority reasonably anticipated at the time the contract was concluded.
- Parity between agency attorneys and staff and those in prosecutorial offices should not be limited to salary. Rather, the total compensation package, including medical, sick leave, insurance, and retirement benefits, should be equal.
- An agency attorney's "counterpart" in a prosecutorial office should be determined based upon experience, and the type of case each lawyer is qualified to handle. For example, an agency attorney qualified to try Class A felonies (see Guideline 2) should be compensated at a rate equal to a similarly qualified prosecutor.
- Assigned counsel should be compensated for time and service performed. The objective should be to provide reasonable compensation in accordance with prevailing standards. Compensation for assigned counsel should be approved by administrators of assigned-counsel programs.
American Bar Association Standards for Criminal Justice, Standard 5-3.1:
- Selection of the chief defender and staff should be made on the basis of merit and should be free from political, racial, religious, sexual, ethnic, and other considerations extraneous to professional competence. Recruitment should include special efforts to employ attorney candidates from minority groups which are substantially represented in the defender program's client populations. The chief defender and staff should be compensated at the rate commensurate with their experience and skill sufficient to attract career personnel and comparable to that provided for their counterparts in prosecutorial offices. The chief defender should be appointed for a fixed term of years and be subject to renewal. Neither the chief defender nor staff should be removed except upon showing of good cause. Selection of the chief defender and staff by judges should be prohibited.
National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Task Force on Courts, 1973, Standard 13.7:
- The office of public defender should be a full-time occupation. State or local units of government should create regional public defenders serving more than one local unit of government if this is necessary to create a caseload of sufficient size to justify a full-time public defender. The public defender should be compensated at a rate not less than that of the presiding judge of the trial court of general jurisdiction.
National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standard and Goals, Task Force on Courts, 1973, Standard 13.11:
- Salaries through the first 5 years of service for public defender staff attorneys should be comparable to those of attorney associates in local private law firms.
National Legal Aid and Defender Association, Standards for Defender Services, Standard IV-4:
- The defender and staff should be compensated at a rate commensurate with their qualifications and experience. To attract qualified career personnel salary levels should be comparable to those of their counterparts in prosecutorial offices and private law firms in the area.
National Legal Aid and Defender Association, Guidelines for Negotiating and Awarding Indigent Legal Defense Contracts, 1983 Draft, Guideline III-10, Compensation:
- The contract shall provide that the Contractor compensate:
National Legal Aid and Defender Association Guidelines, III-11, Special Case Compensation:
- The contract should provide for reasonable compensation over and above the normal contract price for cases which require an extraordinary amount of time and preparation, including, but not limited to, capital cases. Services which require special fees should be defined in the contract.
National Legal Aid and Defender Association Guidelines, III-12, Case-and Work-Overload:
- The contract should provide that the Contractor may decline to represent clients at no penalty in the event that during the contract:
National Legal Aid and Defender Association Guidelines, III-13, Conflicts of Interest:
- The contract should avoid creating conflicts of interest between the Contractor or individual defense attorney and clients. Specifically: Contracts should not, by their provisions or because of low fees or compensation to attorneys, induce an attorney to waive a client's rights for reasons not related to the client's best interest.
Seattle-King County Bar Association Indigent Defense Services Task Force, Guidelines for Accreditation of Defender Agencies, 1982, Guideline Number 6:
- Agency attorneys and staff should be compensated at a rate commensurate with their training and experience. To attract qualified personnel, compensation levels should be comparable to those of their counterparts in prosecutorial offices in the area.
Executive Director - SYLAW
