States, Cities Employ Varied Public Defender Approaches

Nationally, fewer than 10% of criminal defendants are financially able to hire their own attorneys. A handful act as their own lawyers. The rest are represented by publicly paid lawyers--either government public defenders or private attorneys appointed by the court.

Los Angeles County Public Defender Wilbur F. Littlefield said his office regularly represents 70% to 75% of all criminal defendants. In the last fiscal year, his 521 deputies handled 338,476 cases.

States, and even local governments within states, use different systems to provide counsel.

New York City contracts for the work by the nonprofit Legal Aid Society. In Chicago, the lawyers are civil service employees hired by Cook County.

The city and county of San Francisco elects its public defender, who hires a government-paid staff. Los Angeles and Orange counties appoint theirs, who head civil service staffs.

San Diego County, now setting up a full-scale government public defender office, has traditionally contracted for its court defense work, primarily with the private nonprofit Defenders Inc., largest contract agency in the nation.

Established in the county charter in 1914, the Los Angeles County public defender’s office is the oldest in the country, providing the service for indigents half a century before it was required.

Littlefield, a veteran trial lawyer who has been with the office 31 years and who is frequently consulted by counterparts across the country, said the office’s longevity and pay scale help him compete successfully for top legal talent.

Trial deputy public defenders in Los Angeles, unlike many contemporaries across the country, are paid on a par with deputy district attorneys on the other side of the counsel table. They earn from $35,292 to $80,280 a year. By the time they graduate to felonies, they juggle between 30 and 50 cases at a time.

By contrast, the 600 lawyers handling criminal cases for the New York City Legal Aid Society earn between $26,524 and $52,730 and represent an average 69 defendants at any given time.

Chicago’s 437 public defenders earn between $23,700 and $47,000, and by Second Assistant Public Defender Robert Gevirtz’s estimate, handle 80 to 100 felony cases at once.

In California, Orange County Public Defender Ronald Y. Butler said his 119 trial lawyers earn between $35,172 and $74,688 annually and get no more than 450 cases a year.

Alex Landon, executive director of San Diego’s Defenders Inc., said his 39 full-time lawyers earn between $21,500 and $40,000 and have handled about 160 cases a year.

The job takes an emotional toll on lawyers, and top administrators worry about the effects.

“Some people feel for their clients and get to the point of thinking what they do is futile, and that causes them to burn out,” San Diego’s Landon said. “This type of practice is a high-volume practice. And it’s like brain surgery--you are dealing here with life-and-death issues.”

Kim A. Taylor, director of the District of Columbia Public Defender Service in Washington, said that as a trial attorney she gave herself “breathing space” by taking an occasional three-day weekend to deal with the stress. Littlefield rotates his deputies between highly stressful courts such as those downtown and more relaxed branch or traffic courts.

Despite the stress, administrators report less turnover than one might expect.

Because the public defender’s office puts a new attorney into court faster than a private law office, some neophyte lawyers join an office to get a couple of years of trial practice before signing with a firm or creating a solo office.

Littlefield estimates that 80% of his Los Angeles deputies initially plan only a two-year stay for experience, “but they find they like it, so they stay.”

Turnover here was 7.9% last year--41 attorneys out of the 521--and the median longevity of “Grade IVs” (the most senior deputies like Robert Hall and Joanne Rotstein) was 16 years, with the top at 30 years.

The New York Legal Aid Society’s criminal defender turnover was 13.4% in 1987 and 17.8% in 1986, and always stays under 20%, spokeswoman Patricia Bath said.

Orange County’s Butler, like Littlefield, said his relatively high-paid deputies consider the office a career and usually stay. San Diego’s Landon, who has required new employees to commit themselves to two years with the nonprofit contract agency, said most of his deputies have worked there more than five years.