Defense Lawyer’s Low Rates to Represent Public Draw Doubters

Until recently, few attorneys in Ventura County had heard of John A. Barker, a colorful, cowboy-lawyer from tiny Madera County who jolted them with his low-ball offer to take over a good chunk of the county’s public criminal defense work.

But now, Barker’s name is on the tip of every defense attorney’s tongue. And for many it doesn’t taste too good.

Barker’s $1.1-million proposal undercuts by more than half the $2.4-million bid from Conflict Defense Associates, the Ventura firm that has held the county’s contract for 18 years and has represented clients in numerous high-profile murder cases.

The firms are vying to represent indigent clients when the public defender’s office declares a conflict of interest, as it does in about 10% of its cases. That happens most often when more than one person is accused in the same crime.

The county’s judges are expected to interview Barker this week for a second time. They will make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors later this month.

Critics question how Barker can deliver adequate representation so inexpensively. They have suggested he’ll hire green lawyers fresh out of no-name law schools and do little investigative work. They predict that poor people accused of crimes will get wrongly convicted.

Barker said he’s heard it all before.

“For 11 years, people have been asking me how I can do it,” he said in an interview last week. “They say, ‘Well, you’re going to hire ineffective counsel.’ Well, that’s a lie because if that was true, I’d lose a contract.”

At 53, Barker describes himself as a businessman who also happens to be a lawyer. He also moonlights as a scuba-diving instructor and a cattleman who owns a 40-acre ranch deep in the Sierra foothills and a 160-acre ranch in Oregon.

“I live so far back in the mountains,” he said, “they have to pipe in air.”

But while he enjoys a private life off the beaten path, Barker is pushing hard to expand his business interests beyond the Central Valley mountains where he was raised.

Since securing a public-defender contract with Madera County in 1988, he has broadened his operation to four other counties in Central and Northern California. He now contracts as the public defender in Amador, Trinity and Modoc counties. For seven years, his firm has held a $2-million conflict-defense contract in Fresno County as well.

But some counties--including Placer and Lake--have turned Barker away, opting for local law firms.

Barker, who employs 53 lawyers and nine investigators, is seeking contracts in other counties, but declined to specify which ones. With such competitive practices, he said, he tends to make enemies quickly.

“That’s his MO,” said Madera lawyer Steven Geringer, who once complained about Barker to the State Bar of California, saying his public defender contract didn’t meet legal requirements.

“He preys upon counties that have cash-flow problems,” Geringer said. “Barker comes in with some unbelievable low-ball amount, and one of the problems is the type of services he provides. He hires very young, very inexperienced attorneys.”

Barker said Geringer has tried to discredit him for years and carries a grudge because his firm ran a newspaper ad against the lawyer when he ran for judge some years ago.

“He’s out for me,” Barker said. “He’s made it his life’s ambition.”

Barker may have detractors, but county bureaucrats hold more favorable views.

Modoc County approved its $50,800 annual contract three months ago.

“His proposal was the best we reviewed,” said Mike Maxwell, chief administrator of the rural county with a population of 10,000. He added that Barker came with good references.

In Madera County, officials recently renewed Barker’s $854,904 annual public defender contract and praised his operation. Assistant County Administrator John Sears said Barker sticks to his budget, unlike some contractors.

“People who have been working the system for some time, they’re going to be upset because here comes a guy who is more like a department head than a contractor,” Sears said. “He never comes back and says, ‘Gee I didn’t think about this, I’m going to need [more money].’ ”

Barker said there is no magic to his operation.

He said he keeps his costs contained by doing more in-house investigative work and shuffling lawyers among his various offices, depending on the demand. He said he also vacuums his own office.

“My operation is a little bit lean,” Barker explained. “Yes we have some young attorneys--every public defender’s office does. . . . But we don’t have inexperienced people.”

While a few top lawyers earn more than $100,000 a year, beginning lawyers at Barker’s firm make about $39,000 annually, he said. They are also rewarded with a new pair of cowboy boots after winning their first case.

“It’s called winning your boots in the organization,” he said. “This is the way we do business. I tell my lawyers, ‘You got one job: Take care of that client, and take care of my client, which is the county.’ ”

Barker said he was raised poor in Chowchilla, a farm town north of Fresno, where he played linebacker on the high school football team. He joined the Marine Corps and earned a degree from Cal State Fresno.

Before becoming a lawyer, Barker worked in law enforcement, first for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department in the Bay Area, and later as chief of police in Huron, an impoverished Central Valley town.

Barker said he didn’t get along with people in Huron and left to become a private investigator. At the suggestion of an attorney he did some work for, he decided to go to law school. He earned his degree from Humphrey’s College School of Law in Stockton in 1981.

If he secures the contract in Ventura County, Barker said, he plans to hire five or six local lawyers and bring down several others from Central California.

In death-penalty cases, Barker said, he would bring in more experienced lawyers on a temporary basis. Barker said he is a “death-penalty-qualified lawyer.” Asked about capital cases he’s handled, Barker could only recall one, a case in which the defendant hired someone to kill his parents.

“We have a death-penalty team,” he said. “We would contract with them to do the death-penalty cases.”

Barker said he’s visited Ventura County a few times, most recently to talk to the county’s judges about his proposal. He said his management team has looked into the cost of living for their lawyers and checked out potential office space.

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful county,” Barker said, “and I have attorneys champing at the bit to go down there.”