Updated: Recent Idaho public defender pay rate changes led to many counsel heading for the exits, and the Idaho State Bar issued a formal ethics opinion due to concerns. It recognizes financial hardships can cause conflicts in legal representation but notes that counsel cannot leave a case without the court’s approval.
A former public defender accused of representing a client at a November 2022 preliminary hearing while under the influence of cocaine has received a suspension of a year and a day.
Indiana could help address an attorney shortage in underserved communities through law student scholarships and loan-repayment assistance, according to initial recommendations by the Indiana Supreme Court’s Commission on Indiana’s Legal Future.
Public defenders and prosecutors are among about 250 government attorneys who went on strike Monday in California’s Sacramento County following two years without a contract.
Prosecutors with the California National Guard’s Counterdrug Task Force will help prosecute state cases originating in Alameda County, California, according to an announcement Friday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Many states are facing a crisis in public defense because of low pay, excessive caseloads, frequent burnout and a “great resignation” of qualified attorneys that began during the pandemic and shows no signs of ebbing.
Updated: A former public defender who represents a detainee at Guantanamo Bay is the winner of the 2024 ABA Journal/Ross Writing Contest for Legal Short Fiction.
With the RAND Corp., the National Center for State Courts and the ABA’s Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense, a new study was created that contains “reliable, data-based workload standards.” The 166-page National Public Defense Workload Study calls for a significant reduction in workloads for those who do criminal justice work in the public sector.
President Joe Biden digressed when answering questions last fall about documents stored at his vice presidential residence to remember his tough torts class at the Syracuse University College of Law and the first job that he got after graduation.
A Las Vegas judge is facing ethics charges partly for a social media photo of herself sporting a bikini while in a hot tub with public defenders. Judge Erika Ballou is facing a misconduct complaint filed by the Nevada Commission on Judicial Discipline.
In 2022, lawyer Noella Sudbury launched an app called Rasa to provide a quick, cheap and easy solution for people who want a fresh start, automating the process of expungement from start to finish.
Some lawyers are less reliable than defendants when it comes to showing up in court, according to a study of criminal cases in Philadelphia courts during a 10-year span.
A lawyer who displayed a “stunning void of evidence regarding any genuine pursuit of sobriety” should be suspended for using cocaine before his client’s hearing and defending it as sometimes helpful, according to a brief filed by the Pennsylvania Office of Disciplinary Counsel.
An assistant public defender has been placed on paid leave because he was thought to be the person responsible for placement of Marxist newspapers with anti-Israel content in the waiting room of the public defender’s courthouse office in New Britain, Connecticut.
A lawyer who worked for New York County Defender Services has resigned after a viral video purportedly showed her tearing down posters displaying hostages held by Hamas.
