Westmoreland County officials are mulling a plan to cut the number of private lawyers appointed to represent criminal defendants.
Court administrators estimate that about $150,000 a year can be saved by retaining a staff of five attorneys earning an annual salary rather than the current system in which dozens of lawyers are appointed and paid on an hourly basis.
“Other than personnel, this is the courts' largest line item,” said court administrator Paul Kuntz.
Last year, judges appointed more than 50 private lawyers who represented about 330 defendants. The county paid $368,000 for those lawyers.
Attorneys are appointed by the courts to represent criminal defendants when there is a conflict of interest with the public defender's office. These conflicts are typically caused when multiple defendants are charged in a case and one is already represented by the public defender's office.
For the last several months, court officials have explored methods to reduce these costs.
Kuntz surveyed 33 counties throughout Pennsylvania and found that most — 25 — used independent staff to deal with these cases.
Westmoreland was just one of five counties paying court-appointed lawyers on an hourly basis, he said.
Last year, Westmoreland County paid lawyers $45 an hour.
Kuntz said the current proposal would call for the county to retain five lawyers who would handle between 70 to 75 cases a year. The lawyers would be independent contractors, receive no county benefits and earn up to $45,000 a year.
“They would work from their own offices and do their own clerical work. The county would pay for copies, mileage and for investigations,” Kuntz said.
The proposal has not been formally presented to the three county commissioners, who would have to approve the change.
“It's being reviewed by our solicitor,” said Commissioner Tyler Courtney. “We're seeing if it is beneficial to the county.”
The plan has drawn mixed reviews from lawyers.
Last year, defense attorney Brian Aston was appointed to represent about a dozen defendants and earned more than $15,000 from the county.
“I'd be interested in continuing, but it's a small portion of my business,” Aston said
The change could prove costly to some lawyers who earned more than $20,000 doing court-appointed work.
“I will represent any client wherever I find them,” said Greensburg lawyer James Robinson. “Nobody wants to lose clients.”
Robinson was appointed to nearly 40 cases last year.
Kuntz said the process by which attorneys would be hired and assigned cases hasn't been decided.
The appointed lawyers would continue to be retained to handle homicide cases, but an alternate list of lawyers would be compiled to defend death penalty cases.
Chief Public Defender Wayne McGrew, who as a private lawyer was appointed last year to represent 22 defendants and earned more than $11,000, said he would like to have input into who is hired to assist his office.
“We're going to have to work with a lot of those counsels,” McGrew said.
The public defender's office currently handles about 3,000 cases with its staff of five full-time and 10 part-time attorneys. The office has a budget of about $1.5 million.
Rich Cholodofsky is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-830-6293 or rcholodofsky@tribweb.com.
