9/25/07 - Lawsuit challenges Conflict Attorney Office

(As published by Cortland Standard, Aimee Milks reporting)

Three Cortland County attorneys filed a lawsuit Friday in state Supreme Court that seeks to abolish the county’s Conflict Attorney Office.

The lawyers claim the local law that created the office in November 2006 violates state law and infringes on the court’s authority to appoint attorneys for poor clients.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the law invalid and have the county do away with the conflict attorney who was hired in August.

In addition, the lawyers — Frank Williams, Edward Goehler and Randolph Kruman — want resolution over recent controversy with the Conflict Attorney Office.

The lawyers say they are unsure whether they should follow the conflict attorney when being assigned counsel, a 1984 assigned counsel plan set up by the Cortland County Bar Association or an Aug. 17 order by Cortland County’s two judges, who also declared the local law invalid.

In the order, County Court Judges Judy Campbell and William Ames took away assigned counsel responsibility from the conflict attorney and placed it with the courts.

“There are three things we are supposed to be obeying and we don’t know which one to abide by,” Williams said. “As lawyers we can come to which one we think, but that’s not binding. We want it to be resolved by a judge.”

The lawsuit names as defendants the county, county administrator, county Legislature, county Family Court, County Court, Surrogate Court, Ames and Campbell, and the Cortland County Bar Association.

Williams said the courts and the bar association are nominal defendants. Nominal defendants are not “guilty” of anything, but have a stake in the subject matter of the case and will be affected by a ruling.

“We welcome the lawsuit filed by three individual attorneys,” Ames and Campbell said in a joint statement Monday. “The suit is meant to obtain clarification from the courts on Local Law No. 1. We look forward to the resolution of issues raised by the suit.”

County Administrator Scott Schrader said he thinks it is too late for the attorneys to file for a declaratory judgment because the statute of limitations of the state Municipal Home Law Rule under which the local law was created is four months.

“As for the lawsuit itself, it claims that Local Law No. 1 is invalid. I stand by the comments I made when it was drafted,” Schrader said. “It’s providing an economical solution to a costly program. So for the lawyers to sit there and object because they aren’t receiving the same amount of money, they aren’t thinking of the taxpayers or the indigents, they are thinking of themselves. This isn’t about lawfulness for them, this is about money.”