Low Pay Makes It Hard For Public Defenders Office To Find Lawyers

The pay rate of 40-dollars-an-hour offered by the Wisconsin Public Defenders office is said to be too low, but it’s not going up.  That office assigns about 40 percent of its 138-thousand cases each year to private attorneys, but the state struggles to find attorneys willing to take the cases.  The Sixth Amendment Center says the break-even level for attorneys is 42-dollars-an-hour.  Wisconsin’s compensation is the lowest rate among the 50 states.  The Legislature rejected a bill raising the rate to 55-to-70-dollars-an-hour.  That would have cost taxpayers an additional 19-million dollars.

Source: WRJC.com

News At Other State Sites:

[wp-rss-aggregator source=”87908,87904,713,696,676″]

WISCONSINREPORT.COM (WiscReport.com) is not affiliated with Wisconsin Government or any state agency, department, entity, or other website or printed publication with Wisconsin in it’s name. Established in 2002, we operate completely independent from political parties and other forms of outside influence. Our Mission is to report the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We are WiscReport on Twitter and Facebook. A Morbizco Internet Media online publication. – WisconsinReport.com.

Learn More about WisconsinReport.com.

---