Source: Liberalism.org
by Radley Balko
“In 2017, six counties in North Carolina changed how they paid their public defenders. Previously, the counties paid private attorneys an hourly rate to represent indigent people charged with crimes. Under the new system, indigent defense would be handled with flat-fee contracts — an attorney would agree to represent a given percentage of a county’s indigent cases in exchange for a set amount of money. Five years later, a study documented the results: People represented under the flat-fee system were more likely to be convicted, far more likely to be incarcerated, and more likely to plead guilty without a trial. Flat-fee lawyers spent less time on each case and were significantly more likely to dispose of a case on the same day they met their clients. … Those outcomes were entirely predictable.” (03/30/26)
https://www.liberalism.org/p/in-criminal-justice-we-get-what-we-pay-for