The Supreme Judicial Court has denied a request to raise bar advocates’ hourly pay beyond the rate set by the state legislature.
The petition requesting an increase in hourly pay was filed by the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), the agency that runs the bar advocate program.
In its petition, CPCS asked the SJC “to determine whether, in light of the resulting shortage of defense counsel, State court judges are authorized to increase compensation rates for bar advocates above levels set by the Legislature.”
The petition was prompted by a shortage of bar advocates throughout the state, particularly in eastern Massachusetts.
Currently bar advocates are paid between $75 and $95 an hour. That rate will increase to $85 to $105 per hour this July.
The SJC declined to exceed the legislatively created rate.
Because the petitioner has not provided evidence that the current statutory rates for bar advocates are insufficient to maintain a constitutionally adequate judiciary capable of protecting indigent criminal defendants’ right to counsel, we decline to disturb the Legislature’s funding decision. As we did in Lavallee and Carrasquillo, we defer to the Legislature “[a]s the representative branch in charge of making laws and appropriating funds” to determine the best approach to administering and funding the Commonwealth’s system 25 for providing legal counsel to indigent criminal defendants.
The full text of the decision is attached below.