Costly Legal Help For Poor Under Fire Overwhelmed Public Defenders Hear Commissioners’ Criticism

Spokane County commissioners have been sending Public Defender Donald Westerman a message. It reads: “Dear Don. Nothing personal. QUIT SPENDING SO MUCH MONEY.”

After hearing versions of that plea for the past month, Westerman’s response is: All right, we’re trying. But don’t expect miracles.

Westerman, trapped between representing thousands of poor clients needing legal help and commissioners watching every dollar, says he’ll continue trying out ideas to save his office from exceeding its budget.

At the same time, Westerman said he doubts any of the ideas he’s seen so far will make much of a dent in the key problem - too much work, not enough resources.

Last month Westerman sent out a plea, asking private attorneys in the county to volunteer to take on six public defense cases a year.

This coming week, he’ll prepare requests for bids that would let outside law firms take on all the county’s misdemeanor work - about half the public defender’s total cases.

Those two efforts coincide with commissioners deciding this week to give Westerman’s office $150,000 more than first budgeted for 1997. Westerman asked the county last month for $450,000, saying the growing defense caseload again was threatening to overwhelm his staff of 42 attorneys and 20 support staff.

Last year, Westerman sought and received extra money three times for the same reason. He said his staff is “drowning” in caseloads far heavier than state and federal standards suggest as the norm for defenders.

During 1996, Westerman received $425,000 in supplemental money - much of it for “conflict” work - criminal cases that require hiring private defense attorneys to avoid a conflict of interest.

The total money spent by his office rose in 1996 to $3.9 million.

This year, commissioners set the budget at $3.6 million and warned Westerman not to keep coming back for money.

When Westerman asked for extra money last month, Commissioner Kate McCaslin criticized the defender’s office for spending too much time and money being too zealous defending clients.

Westerman wants to avoid a public debate over McCaslin’s remarks. “I’m willing to look at any possibilities to help this office function properly and help the county financially,” Westerman said this week.

Last month, Westerman sent out a public plea for county attorneys to voluntarily take on cases his office otherwise would handle, for free.

His appeal, mailed to more than 900 Spokane County attorneys in Spokane County’s Bar Association newsletter, produced just three replies.

Westerman said he didn’t expect a big response.

“The problem is private attorneys are busy enough,” he said, noting that local attorneys traditionally have been asked to donate work for civil and family law work, not criminal defense.

In the coming week, he’s also expecting to invite bids for someone else to carry the county’s misdemeanor work.

Westerman said he doubts this solution will ultimately save the county any money.

He’s convinced nobody else can handle the county’s misdemeanor load of more than 5,500 cases at a lower cost than his office, he said.

But if the county, after reviewing bids, finds it can save money by assigning those cases to one or more outside law firms, Westerman said that would offer him one benefit he now does not have.

That would allow him to take the dozen staff attorneys handling misdemeanors and assign them to the complicated, more-costly felony cases that are also rising in volume every year.

McCaslin said contracting out misdemeanor work will save the county a fair amount of money.

“Probably this won’t interest the bigger firms. But we have a lot of smaller firms that would be eager for this work,” McCaslin said.

One option might be shipping the cases to the city of Spokane’s public defender office, which has 10 attorneys handling only misdemeanors.

City Public Defender Kathy Knox said the city might submit a bid if “it makes sense to consider that option.”

That option would satisfy those who are urging more collaboration between city and county government, she added.

Whether or not the city makes a bid on the county’s misdemeanor workload, Westerman said his bigger concern is that the county would choose to accept the cheapest bid that comes in.

He noted that several years ago, the city contracted its entire caseload to a private law firm, then that firm realized its price had been too low.

“The firm ended up cutting corners, causing the city major embarrassment” by losing court cases it should have won, he said.

He said commissioners will review the bids within the next two to three months.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: County public defender’s caseloads