Lawyers assigned by judges to represent children and low-income litigants in New York state courts in matters such as child neglect and domestic violence are demanding their first pay raise in nearly two decades.
The private attorneys, paid by the government to represent people who can’t afford a lawyer, receive no more than $75 an hour, a rate set in 2004. They started pressing Gov. Kathy Hochul to increase the rate to $150 an hour, comparable with what lawyers who do similar work in federal courts are paid, and said they want it done by April 1.
In support of their call for the wage increase, the New York City Family Court Judges Association wrote to Hochul in January. It said there are “hundreds” of new cases in courthouses across the five boroughs that need to be assigned to attorneys everyday.
However, in the last six months, there have been days when no lawyers were available to take on the work.
“As judges, we observe daily the heartbreaking impact the inadequate supply of attorneys has on the children and families who come before us, and it is not an overstatement to assert that our system for providing counsel to indigent litigants in Family Court is in a crisis,” the association said.
The number of lawyers who participated in the Attorney for Children program declined by nearly 30% since 2018, according to Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence Marks, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the statewide court system. The shortage of attorneys exacerbates already...
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