State Has Lowest Appointed Lawyer Fee

Wisconsin faces a constitutional crisis because it is in “50th place in these United States with respect to paying for defense counsel,” a judge told the State Supreme Court.

Eau Claire County Circuit Judge William M. Gabler Sr. also said the State Public Defender’s office (SPD) is “facing personnel shortages, not only within the ranks of full-time attorneys, but also in recruiting private bar practitioners to take public defender appointments.”

Gabler wrote in support of a petition asking the Supreme Court to increase to $100 per hour the $40 per hour rate paid to SPD-appointed lawyers who represent clients who cannot afford to hire a laywer. SPD makes the appointments when the office has excessive caseloads or conflicts of interest.

“The right to counsel is a hollow constitutional right if lawyers are paid an hourly rate that doesn’t even meet their overhead expenses,” Gabler said.

When he graduated law school, Gabler said, the dean worked to make it possible for the newly minted attorneys to quickly “start working and billing at the rate of $35 per hour. It is unconscionable that private lawyers, representing public defender clients, are essentially paid the same hourly rate a new law graduate billed in 1974.”

Thirty-five dollars in May 1974 is worth about $180 today, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation calculator.

The Supreme Court will continue to accept comments on the rate petition until Tuesday, May 1, and has scheduled a May 16 public hearing on the matter.

Gabler is just the third active judge to submit comments on the proposal. The other two are Ashland County Circuit Judge Robert E. Eaton and Bayfield County Circuit Judge John P. Anderson.

No sitting Milwaukee County judge has submitted comments, but retired Milwaukee County circuit judge Thomas P. Donegan did. He wrote in favor of the higher rate.

“They, the attorneys, deserve better, and certainly the poor and the outcast who are their clients deserve the same access to justice justice that other defendants receive,” he said.

Burnett County submitted a resolution, approved by the County Board, that supports a “market rate” for SPD-appointed lawyers.

Judges are forced to appoint counsel at county expense because the public defender’s office cannot find lawyers willing to work for $40 an hour, according to the resolution.

County-appointed lawyers are generally paid $70 per hour.

“This results in costs to counties to appoint counsel, increased costs to jail persons held pre-trial pending appointment of counsel, inefficiency for courts and law enforcement, and a delay in obtaining justice for victims,” the resolution says.

You can let the State Supreme Court know how you feel about raising the pay for lawyers who represent poor people in criminal cases. Submit your comments by May 1 to clerk@wicourts.gov and carrie.janto@wicourts.gov or snail mail them to Clerk of Supreme Court, Attention: Deputy Clerk-Rules, P.O. Box 1688, Madison, WI 53701-1688.

Please send your comments as a Microsoft Word attachment and include in your comment the petition number, which is Rule Petition 17-06.