New court-appointed counsel system still needs improvements.

I saw Philadelphia has a new fee structure for court-appointed conflict counsel. I noticed there have been increases across the board. Is it a good system now?

The answer is very easily no, it's not a good system. First and foremost—though new rules have been promulgated–there's no money to pay the increases. Perhaps that will change, but it's still a major problem.

As I've urged in the past, there is a need now for state funding of all indigent defense systems throughout the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. There's a hodgepodge of different systems, none of which really are ethical. Many of them don't pay enough funds and some of them which pay flat fees have no bearing and no relationship to the number of cases or clients a lawyer is handling. Philadelphia has had a combination of a flat preparation fee and then per diem trial fee, but the rates have been so low in recent years that it seriously infringed on the ability to get competent representation. If lawyers did their job, they were ending up getting paid at $2 or $3 an hour, depending on the amount of time spent. That does not make for a competent system, particularly if you have lawyers who are emphasizing indigent criminal defense work. It's one thing if a lawyer does two or three appointments as a favor to the court. It's another thing if 60 to 70 percent of one's practice is indigent defense when the fees are low, and at times the fees are cut.