I’m writing this on a throwaway account for reasons that I believe will become obvious as you read.
I have been a practicing public defender in a major American metropolitan city for roughly seven years. It is likely no secret that public defense lawyers have been criminally underpaid (pun intended) in most jurisdictions around the country; it was no different in my city.
A bit of background: The way my jurisdiction operates is that each public defender or team of defenders have corresponding prosecuting attorney counterparts in the District Attorney’s office. Throughout my entire seven years, we have been paid far less than our opposing counsels. When I started at my office, I made $61k. As of two weeks ago, over the course of seven years, I was making $77k. My opposing DA was making just under $100k.
Well, as many of us in this sub know, the job market generally has been great recently. It is no different for lawyers. The private sector has been poaching lawyers from our office for over a year, and we have struggled to replace them. Quite a bit of this poaching has been the result of private litigation firms finally waking up to the fact that there are very few attorney jobs out there that get more trial and courtroom experience than public defenders in US major cities. We know all or most of the judges in our jurisdiction, we know how the courthouses work, we know how to try cases, and many of us have dealt with heavier subject matter than anything the private sector could throw at us. As a result, the hiring away from our office has been significant, and replacing those who have left has been almost impossible.
We knew management was aware of all of this, but as far as we knew, they were not doing anything about it. That is, until we unexpectedly received an email last week with a single page PDF titled “Attorney Compensation.” Upon opening the email last week, we learned that every lawyer in our office (of 120ish lawyers) received a permanent raise of $40k, effective immediately. My salary went from $77k to $117,500 overnight. I am not ashamed to admit that I openly cried with happiness. Public sector work has been my passion, but I honestly never expected to be compensated in this way for it. We had been lobbying for pay increases for as long as I have worked at this office, but none of us ever expected this.
So, what is the natural response of the city’s legal community? To complain to the county’s board of commissioners that we are now being paid too much. Our DA counterparts (who have always been paid more than us) have stopped communicating on cases. Their boss, the county’s elected district attorney, has already requested to be heard by the board of commissioners. I have personally received rude and insulting messages from other attorneys who I used to consider friends saying that this was an “overcorrection” and undeserved.
Setting aside the fact that these folks felt the need to actually reach out and share their negative thoughts, I feel that it is worth pointing out that we take more cases to trial, have more clients, and work longer hours than most people in private sector legal jobs. But we are undeserving because we are public defenders? Because our clients are indigent and accused of crimes? It is also worth mentioning that someone with my level of experience in a private sector job in my city is still earning more than I make now, even with the significant raise.
For years, we have been the folks who others point to in order to say “at least we aren’t them.” I am wholly disappointed in these lawyers in other offices who cannot see that this is a net benefit for everyone in our field, and that keeping others down does not mean you get any further ahead.
Anyway, thanks for listening. I guess I just wanted to share a slight success story, as well as my frustrations with folks who don’t seem to understand that we are all in this together. I’m a big fan of this subreddit.