Interim Report of the Joint Bar Association Task Force on the New York City Assigned Counsel Plan

Last week the Joint Bar Association’s Task Force on New York City’s Assigned Counsel Plan issued an interim report outlining the problems in providing counsel to more than 24,000 indigent New Yorkers every year who are guaranteed counsel under the United States Constitution.  Ever since the Supreme Court’s decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, there have been pervasive problems in the funding and administration of the programs to provide counsel to the indigent in criminal cases.  NYCLA, City Bar and the other four NYC county bar associations formulated an assigned counsel plan 60 years ago, and it needs to be updated.  As a result, those six bar associations, together with two criminal bar associations, formed a joint task force to work on recommendations for revisions.  NYCLA has been represented on the task force by our president-elect Ron Minkoff.

NYCLA has long supported adequate funding for indigent criminal representation.  Most recently we were the plaintiff in a litigation that substantially increased compensation for indigent representation in criminal cases, from $60/75 per hour to the rates paid in federal cases, more than double that amount.  Notwithstanding that increase, there have been continued challenges in funding indigent counsel, training, engagement of investigators and experts and even software and office space allocations for the administration of the program.  The interim report outlines these challenges.  

We look forward to working with Mayor Mamdani and his criminal justice team to try to address these issues.  We thank Ron Minkoff for his outstanding work representing NYCLA on the Joint Bar Task Force.  We also thank Debevoise & Plimpton for their pro bono work in support of the Task Force.

A copy of the Task Force’s interim report is here.

About the New York County Lawyers Association
The New York County Lawyers Association (www.nycla.org) was founded in 1908 as one of the first major bar associations in the country that admitted members without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Since its inception, it has pioneered some of the most far-reaching and tangible reforms in American jurisprudence and has continuously played an active role in legal developments and public policy.

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