MANSFIELD — Richland County commissioners on Tuesday approved another increase in fees paid to court-appointed attorneys, a decision that seems likely to end a boycott by more than 30 local trial lawyers.
The new rate, effective, Jan. 1, will pay $75 per hour for attorneys handling first-, second- and third-degree felony cases and $65 for all other legal work, including cases in Mansfield and Shelby municipal courts, juvenile court, domestic relations court and probate court.
The decision came after an 80-minute meeting with Probate Court Judge Phillip Mayer, presiding judge for Richland County, and Nicholas Atterholt, president of the local bar association, as well as other judges and defense attorneys.
The move comes four months after commissioners voted to increase the fees, which were also to be effective Jan. 1, the first such increase in almost two decades.
At that time, commissioners agreed to pay $60 per hour across the board for the work, whether it was done inside or outside the courtroom. This would put the county in the top 20 percent of the state’s counties in terms of fees paid to court-appointed attorneys.
Prior to then, a two-tiered system paid court-appointed attorneys $60 an hour for work done in the court and $50 for work performed outside the court.
The decision to increase the reimbursement came after the state in July, in its new biennial budget, increased the amount of money it will reimburse counties for court-appointed attorney fees.
In October, almost three dozen experienced attorneys announced they would no longer accept court-appointed cases. claiming the increase was not enough and demanding the $75 per hour across-the-board increase commended by the Ohio Public Defenders Office.
The state recommendation was to increase attorneys’ fees to $75 per hour across the board, which 13 counties now do, though none of those 13 are in north central Ohio.
In Ashland, Crawford, Knox, Morrow and Huron counties, as of November, court-appointed attorneys are paid $60 per hour for in-court work and $50 per hour for work done out of court, according to the Ohio Public Defender’s office.
Atterholt said he would take the proposed increase to the local bar association. The majority of attorneys present seemed to believe the move would be sufficient to end the boycott, which had resulted in out-of-county attorneys being appointed to handle some local cases.
Even with another bump in pay, the new two-tired system, paying more to attorneys handling the most serious felony cases, didn’t sit well with judges and some other attorneys attending the meeting.
Juvenile Court Judge Steve McKinley said he is opposed to the two-tiered system.
“I think no one wants to be treated like a step-child and that would probably be the way I would characterize (the new system),” McKinley said. “I don’t think we want to treat those individuals in that way and I don’t want the attorneys representing them to be treated in that way.
“I don’t think there is a good reason to go with a tired structure. It’s treating people differently. It’s treating a parent who is potentially going to lose their child (in a dependency) case as though we’re not concerned about you. I think there should be a uniformity,” McKinley said.
Commissioners agreed to revisit the fee structure in six months after the amount of the additional state reimbursement was better known.
