Bar advocates dispute Beacon Hill's forecast for labor crisis resolution

Bar advocates said Monday they have not been involved in any conversations with legislative leadership about a resolution to the labor crisis that's resulted in more than 100 court cases being dismissed, even though top House and Senate Democrats suggested the situation could be fixed "soon."

House Speaker Ron Mariano and Senate President Karen Spilka told reporters their teams continue to work on a solution to the pay dispute that has led bar advocates to stop accepting new cases representing indigent defendants. Spilka called on the attorneys to reverse course in the meantime, contending that "people are being hurt" as a result of their stance.

"We hope to get it resolved soon, but in the meantime, they should be working," Spilka told reporters Monday afternoon following a private leadership meeting with Gov. Maura Healey, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and Mariano.

But Sean Delaney, a veteran attorney who has been heavily involved in organizing the labor action, said he was surprised by Spilka's assessment of where things stand.

"No information to that effect has made its way to the bar advocates as of, what is it? 4:49 p.m.?" Delaney said in a late-afternoon interview.

Delaney said he and fellow bar advocate Jennifer O'Brien began speaking in "mid- to late winter" about their concerns with comparably low pay and the effects on cases. The private attorneys appointed to represent those who cannot afford counsel earn $65 per hour in District Court and $85 per hour in Superior Court, in both cases lower than in neighboring states.

In late May, hundreds of bar advocates decided to stop taking new cases to protest pay rates. The attorneys handle about 80% of the overall public defense caseload in Massachusetts.

"And I just want to add that I strongly urge the bar advocates to get back to work," Spilka said. "They are being paid. They continue to be paid."

Asked to provide more details about negotiations and a potential legislative vehicle, Spilka responded, "Nope."

Pressed about her reticence, Spilka said, "Because discussions are happening right now, and we're trying to work it out."

Delaney stressed that bar advocates continue to work on cases they accepted before late May, and disputed use of the phrase "work stoppage."

"I'm in court representing and defending, to the best of my ability, the poor in the commonwealth, as all my fellow bar advocates are," Delaney said. "All we've done is said, 'Listen, enough is enough. We're not taking on any new cases.' So for the governor, the speaker, the Senate president, to say we must go back to work — we have not stopped working. It shows me they don't have any regard for us, the work we do, or the clients that we represent."

Top legislative Democrats have called the situation a "$100 million issue," as the state continues to assess the economic and federal funding outlooks in Massachusetts.

Healey has maintained that bar advocates did not raise the issue with her before she filed her proposed fiscal 2026 budget in January. Spilka on Monday reiterated that point.

"The governor came out with her budget — there were no discussions prior to that, nothing was in the governor's budget. The House came out with their budget in April, nobody raised anything about the need for more funding, or the concern about the funding," Spilka said. "The Senate came out with some increase that was rejected. So we are now trying to resolve the issue and work it out."

Keith Alpern, an attorney who has worked as a bar advocate since the mid-1980s, said he finds the tone elected officials have taken to be "totally disingenuous." He pointed to a Boston Globe report that attorneys asked lawmakers for a raise as early as February and continued those requests during the spring, before bar advocates stopped taking new cases in late May.

"The idea that this was some shock is just nonsense," Alpern said.

Delaney added, "If there's a legislator, especially leadership, who is saying they were blindsided, they must have been under a rock for not only months but for years."

Delaney said he and O'Brien had a meeting with Spilka or her top aides tentatively scheduled for Monday, July 21. But a few days beforehand, he said, "word got back to us and said, 'Unless we tell our colleagues to go back to work, there will be no meeting.'"

A spokesperson for Spilka said in response, "Our office has no record of a meeting or understanding of a meeting like this being planned or scheduled with our office."

Mariano said the chairs of the Ways and Means committees are "trying to work on a solution that is fair and equitable for everybody."

Bob McGovern, communications director at the Committee for Public Counsel Services, was in the House lobby speaking with reporters as the private meeting was underway, though he exited before the Beacon Hill leaders emerged.

"We have been in frequent communication with leadership in both the House and Senate as they work toward a resolution," McGovern said in a statement to the News Service. "We remain hopeful that an agreement will be reached that prioritizes and benefits our clients."

The House and Senate have formal sessions slated for this week, before the branches transition into their August recess that will still feature biweekly informal sessions. A supplemental budget remains unfinished and has been eyed as a potential venue to bump bar advocates' pay.

Asked if that looming break is putting more urgency on the work stoppage, or whether the issue could be put on the backburner without a solution reached this week, Spilka reiterated, "I expect it to be resolved soon."

Healey said she wants the stoppage resolved "immediately," but also refrained from offering specific details about a potential resolution.

"I am hopeful that we will see one very soon, and that will be announced at the appropriate time," the governor said.

Healey has repeatedly called the issue a "matter of public safety" and said last week that she'll "leave it up to the Legislature" to determine a dollar figure associated with a resolution.

Some bar advocates said they are unlikely to accept new cases until they secure a satisfactory raise, arguing that doing so would relinquish leverage.

"The bar advocates certainly are not happy about what's happening in the courts right now, but the reality is that until we stopped taking cases, nobody cared. The Legislature ignored us for years," Alpern said. "The notion that we should go back to taking cases based on some promise that in the future, they're going to take us seriously — why would we think that when we haven't been taken seriously for decades?"

Mariano acknowledged the thorny discussions at play. The Quincy Democrat said it is not a "traditional" negotiation due to individual contracts involved.

"So it's hard to foresee where a middle ground might be, one that works for everybody because each one of these folks is an individual contractor. So you may be talking to someone who only represents five people – you don't know," Mariano told reporters. "So you make an agreement with five people, and then you gotta do it 55 more times. We're trying to get a consensus of where these folks would come back to work, and how much it would take to get them to come back to work."

Mariano later clarified the negotiations are not unfolding across every individual contract, though he said some bar advocates may have stiffer requests than others.

"It may be some aggressive and adamant folks who are holding out for the full amount of X, and then you have other folks who will settle for X minus five," Mariano said. "So you have a whole range of acceptances in this area, and we're trying to find out something that works in our budget, because as you heard from the Senate president, they came to us after we were done. So now we have to go in and look for the money, and we have to start cutting things. So it's a long, involved process."

Budget-writers gave themselves a $800 million cushion in their fiscal 2026 compromise budget amid federal funding uncertainty.

Neither Healey nor legislative leaders have taken a stance on whether they believe attorneys' pay should be raised, and have not dictated a specific figure they think attorneys should be paid.

The work stoppage "has pushed our justice system to the brink," according to Boston Bar Association President Matt McTyge. "What began as a crisis of compensation has escalated into a full-blown emergency, one that threatens the safety of our communities and the public’s faith in the justice system," he said in a statement Friday.

The attorneys are not accepting new cases at the same time that Republic Services sanitation workers and Fenway Park hospitality workers are on strike. Asked why she thinks unions are "being more active" this year, Healey said she "can't offer an explanation on that."

"What you see here happening in Massachusetts is no different from what is happening around the country," Healey said. "With respect to Republic, these are private contracts, and so the state doesn't have an active role in this, other than for me to continue to ask that parties resolve this."

Pressed about the tension in Massachusetts between labor and management, the governor said, "I don't know enough to be able to opine on that."