State Representative Brian Lohse (the top House appropriator on the justice systems budget) has been trying to address this problem for years. It appears to me that the main roadblocks are 1) Iowa Senate Republicans, and 2) a broader GOP choice to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on private school vouchers while starving other priorities.
When I first represented indigent defendants and/or juvenile children or their parents via Iowa’s contract attorney system, back in the dark ages which may have been 1989, the hourly reimbursement was about $50 as I recall. The rate stayed the same until around 2005. The State Public Defender website has the accurate numbers.
By most inflation calculators, $1 in 1989 is worth approximately $2.54 today. Thus the low rate should be more like $127 per hour, not $86 or $100.
Sorry, but asking lawyers to survive on the new higher numbers is really unrealistic and unreasonable.
Our legislators don’t listen to Judge Christensen as she repeats the pain and woes of juvenile court in each of her State of the Judiciary addresses. Or if they listen, they do not believe that poor people deserve attorneys or guardians ad litem.
And now we live in an atmosphere of utter disdain for lawyers, whether rural or D.C./Big Law.
Thanks for that perspective, Josiah. I expect the Legislature will raise the rate, but maybe not to the modest amount requested, and certainly not to what is required.
We are lucky to have Judge Christensen speaking out repeatedly on these issues. We had the pleasure of working with her in juvenile court for years. The general voter/citizen really has no clue what a service our District and Juvenile Courts provide. Then to have a President who disses the jury system, threatens judges at all levels… is so incredibly dangerous. When will the so-called conservative legislators of Iowa wake up and realize what the judicial system does to provide glue and fairness (however imperfectly)??
State Representative Brian Lohse (the top House appropriator on the justice systems budget) has been trying to address this problem for years. It appears to me that the main roadblocks are 1) Iowa Senate Republicans, and 2) a broader GOP choice to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on private school vouchers while starving other priorities.
Thanks, Laurie. Good points. We could do far worse than Lohse as a Republican candidate for governor.
When I first represented indigent defendants and/or juvenile children or their parents via Iowa’s contract attorney system, back in the dark ages which may have been 1989, the hourly reimbursement was about $50 as I recall. The rate stayed the same until around 2005. The State Public Defender website has the accurate numbers.
By most inflation calculators, $1 in 1989 is worth approximately $2.54 today. Thus the low rate should be more like $127 per hour, not $86 or $100.
Sorry, but asking lawyers to survive on the new higher numbers is really unrealistic and unreasonable.
Our legislators don’t listen to Judge Christensen as she repeats the pain and woes of juvenile court in each of her State of the Judiciary addresses. Or if they listen, they do not believe that poor people deserve attorneys or guardians ad litem.
And now we live in an atmosphere of utter disdain for lawyers, whether rural or D.C./Big Law.
Thank you Lynn for your commentary.
Thanks for that perspective, Josiah. I expect the Legislature will raise the rate, but maybe not to the modest amount requested, and certainly not to what is required.
We are lucky to have Judge Christensen speaking out repeatedly on these issues. We had the pleasure of working with her in juvenile court for years. The general voter/citizen really has no clue what a service our District and Juvenile Courts provide. Then to have a President who disses the jury system, threatens judges at all levels… is so incredibly dangerous. When will the so-called conservative legislators of Iowa wake up and realize what the judicial system does to provide glue and fairness (however imperfectly)??
Thanks, Lynn.