A single justice of the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) has imposed deadlines on Massachusetts courts requiring them to appoint counsel to unrepresented criminal defendants.
In late May many of the state’s bar advocates (private attorneys who accept court-appointed criminal cases) stopped taking new clients in an effort to get the legislature to raise their pay.
The strike or “stoppage” has left a larger number of defendants (many of them incarcerated) without legal representation.
The SJC order imposing the deadlines (i.e., the “Lavelle Protocol“) is attached below.