7/27/07 - Lawyers consider challenge to conflict attorney

Some question whether new position actually will save the county money as intended.

(As published by Cortland Standard, Corey Preston reporting)

A little more than a week before Cortland County’s newly hired conflict attorney is scheduled to begin work, opposition to the position, from local lawyers, is again being raised.

A resolution to pursue a civil action against the county will go before the Cortland County Bar Association at its Aug. 14 meeting, Bar Association Vice-President Mark Suben said Thursday.
“The bar association has no position at this point, but some members have brought it up, they want us to explore (a legal challenge) … so we’re going to discuss it at the meeting,” said Sueben, who was speaking for the bar because current President Ron Walsh Jr. is employed by the county as assistant county attorney.

Thomas Miller, who was hired as conflict attorney by the Legislature last month, is slated to begin work Aug. 6, and should be able to start accepting overflow cases from the Public Defenders’ Office immediately, County Administrator Scott Schrader said Thursday afternoon.
Miller’s position was created in response to the rising costs of hiring assigned counsel, private local lawyers who work at a rate of $75 per hour, to handle cases that cannot be handled by the Public Defenders’ Office, Schrader said.

Assigned counsel costs reached $332,500 in 2006, Schrader said, $175,000 more than budgeted, and legislators have already doubled the original $150,000 allocation for 2007.
The hope is that by dedicating a salaried position — the attorney and a paralegal position approved by the Legislature on Thursday will cost $125,000 annually — to handling a large portion of those cases, the county will save approximately $200,000 on assigned counsel costs, Schrader said.

“This position is designed to reduce our reliance on an assigned counsel program, it was never designed to completely replace it,” Schrader said.

Local lawyers opposed to the position are saying the new position will not accomplish the intended effect, and are suggesting the position was not created legally.

Sueben said it was premature to discuss the legal options the bar would have to challenge the position; however attorneys Frank Williams and Ed Goehler, both of whom work frequently on assigned counsel cases for the county, said the county did not run the position through proper channels before passing the local law creating it.

The county should have sought input or recommendations from the bar association regarding the new position, Williams said, and then should have brought the matter to Chief Administrative Judge Jonathon Lippman, who oversees the administration of assigned counsel.

Schrader said it is the county’s right to create the position through local law, and it did so legally and received approval of that law by the state Legislature.