'It's a crisis': Federal government stops paying private attorneys in court-appointed cases

Private defense attorneys who accept below-market rates to defend indigent clients won't be paid until at least the new fiscal year in October

For the next two-and-a-half months at a minimum, private defense attorneys in San Diego and across the nation are being asked to work without pay while defending court-appointed clients in federal criminal cases.

That’s because on July 3, congressional funding ran out for the federal program that pays private attorneys to represent indigent defendants who, for various reasons, can’t be represented by federal public defender organizations such as Federal Defenders of San Diego.

The private attorneys are hired by the court under the Criminal Justice Act to provide defendants with constitutionally mandated defense counsel guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. Those attorneys already accept well-below-market hourly rates for taking on what are commonly known as CJA cases. Now, they’ve been told they won’t be paid until at least the start of the new fiscal year, on Oct. 1, for the work they perform on CJA cases between July 3 and Sept. 30.

“It’s a crisis,” Southern District of California Chief U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant said Friday. “We’ve weathered crises before, and we’ll figure out a way to deal with it, because defendants have to have attorneys … But it is a crisis.”

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2025/07/19/its-a-crisis-federal-government-stops-paying-private-attorneys-in-court-appointed-cases/?share=rtnoeoetrtcgairitoi5