Facing attrition and crushing workloads, NY family court lawyers for children plead for more state funding

by Elizabeth Kim

Family court lawyers representing children are urging Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers to address a funding shortage that has led to stagnant salaries and widespread departures, depriving the most vulnerable New Yorkers of their right to proper counsel and timely services.

In New York City, the children who show up in family court are mostly Black and Latino. Their cases can vary, but include neglect, abuse, custody battles and being wrongfully removed from their families.

Lawyers for these children – whose families cannot afford legal fees – have not received significant raises in 20 years, advocates say. Those in the field say attrition has always been common, but the exodus of attorneys has increased during the pandemic, leaving those who remain with crushing workloads that could potentially wind up hurting their clients.

“This month four people in our office are actually leaving,” said Vicki Light, an attorney who works with the Legal Aid Society's Juvenile Rights Practice unit. “So the people that stay have to absorb the 400 or so cases that the other attorneys have been working on.”

The interview process for children – many of whom have experienced trauma – is time consuming. Interviews usually don’t occur until the afternoon or evening hours, when the attorneys' clients are out of school.

“It's certainly not a 9-to-5 job,” Light added.

The Children’s Law Center, another New York City-based provider, has said it has a 35% attrition rate.

Deana Tietjen, the group’s deputy executive director, said that in 2022 its Brooklyn office represented approximately 2,200 children. “We’ve already surpassed that number and it’s not even April,” she added.

“The state is courting disaster by turning a blind eye to the unjustifiable lack of funds that is causing the continued loss of children's lawyers,” a group of legal providers, including the Legal Aid Society, Lawyers for Children and the Children’s Law Center, said in a statement this week.

Nonprofit legal providers say they requested an additional $15 million in state aid.

But to their astonishment, attorneys for children were left out of the latest round of budget proposals. Lawmakers did include funding this year for parents’ attorneys, public defenders and so-called “panel attorneys” that also represent children and indigent adults.

The annual starting salary in New York City at nonprofit legal providers is $72,000. After five years, the amount for attorneys representing children rises to $82,000. But from that point on, their salaries are outpaced by those of their government counterparts.

Other parties involved in the city’s family court system have also taken notice.

Judge Erik Pitchal, who presides at Brooklyn Family Court, wrote a letter this month to Hochul that said that the insufficient number of attorneys for children had created a ”crisis of justice” in the city’s family court system that “infringes daily on the fundamental constitutional rights of indigent children, most of whom are Black and brown.”

In an interview with Gothamist, the judge said he did not view his letter as weighing in on a budget issue, but rather “an access to justice issue.”

“What I know is that too often in our court, cases can't move forward because lawyers are not able to be prepared through no fault of their own, but because they have too many cases,” Pitchal told Gothamist in a phone interview.

The lack of preparation, he added, results in court delays, which can leave children in limbo.

According to Pitchal, the national standard for lawyers representing children is between 40 to 60 cases at any given time. In New York, the cap on caseloads for these individuals is 150.

State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who represents Manhattan and chairs the Senate’s judiciary committee, said he believed the missing funding for children's attorneys is likely an oversight.

But there is still time for lawmakers to address the issue. On Wednesday, Gov. Hochul said that the budget, which is due on April 1, will not be on time.

Hoylman-Sigal said he had already addressed the funding request with Senate leaders.

“Funding for these programs has been flat for decades,” he said. “Children have an attorney assigned to them to ensure that their interests are represented.”