The workload has gotten easier for the attorneys in the R.I. Office of the Public Defender, but it’s still not case closed when it comes to the staffing problems for the office that represents adults and children in the court system who can’t afford a lawyer.
R.I. Public Defender Collin Geiselman says an extra $750,000 allocated by the General Assembly last year has allowed the office to give raises to its staff of 58 lawyers.
A year ago, the public defender’s office was grappling with severe staffing shortages as some attorneys left for higher-paying jobs in the private sector and other public agencies, putting pressure on the remaining public defenders to take on far too many cases.
Now the raises have not only helped Geiselman stem the flow of attorneys out the door, but it has also led to attracting more applicants for open positions.
Last year, salaries for front-line prosecutors at the R.I. Office of the Attorney General were about $18,000 higher than they were at the public defender’s office, making persistent staffing problems even harder to solve. Now the gap has closed to about $10,000 to $11,000.
“It’s made a difference,” Geiselman said recently. “We’re doing much better.”
But there are still issues.
The public defender’s office plays a crucial role in the state’s court system, representing adults and children who can’t afford a lawyer but have been charged with crimes or those facing the loss of child custody to the state.
Caseloads of the public defenders remain high, according to office officials.
In 2024, lawyers assigned to felony cases in the public defender’s office handled about 200 cases each, and lawyers handling misdemeanor cases were assigned about 700 cases each. This exceeds the American Bar Association’s national standards of 150 cases a year for felony attorneys and 400 cases a year for misdemeanor attorneys.
Still, the caseloads are far better than they were in 2019, when lawyers assigned to felonies had 250 cases per year and those handling misdemeanors were managing 1,300 cases. The reduction since then is thanks in large part to the state allocating funding for eight more lawyers in the public defender’s office since 2021, Geiselman said. And if the public defender’s office receives an additional $540,000 for two more attorneys and two case managers that it has asked state leaders for in fiscal 2026, misdemeanor lawyers would see their caseloads drop by about 100 cases per year, according to Geiselman.
The staffing is still far short of the 136 full-time attorneys recommended in a 2017 study. But Geiselman says his office is trying to be realistic about its financial requests.
“We’re a constitutionally mandated office, and we have a constitutional duty and we want to make sure that we’re able to fulfill that duty,” Geiselman said, acknowledging the General Assembly, with a looming budget deficit, likely won’t provide funding to add dozens of more lawyers. “We try to be as fiscally responsible and conservative as we can.”
As it is, Gov. Daniel J. McKee’s fiscal 2026 state budget proposal recommends an $18.2 million budget for the Office of the Public Defender, an increase of $1 million from the amount it’s receiving in fiscal 2025, which would allow for a 4% cost-of-living increase. However, his proposal doesn’t include funding for the two additional attorneys and two case managers.
Even after the Office of the Public Defender secured extra funding last year, the raises were delayed because the R.I. Department of Administration has been moving the state’s human resources and finance system to a cloud-based network. The raises were finally included in attorney paychecks in early May.
At the same time, court-appointed lawyers are also expected to get a boost in pay after the list of available attorneys had dwindled for years.
In April, R.I. Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul A. Suttell issued an executive order to increase pay rates with the goal of encouraging attorneys to voluntarily place themselves on a list for judges to draw from when someone can’t afford their own attorney and the public defender’s office has a conflict of interest.
Pay for defense counsel was raised to $142 an hour for cases in which a defendant is charged with a crime carrying a possible life sentence, up from $90. The rate for misdemeanor and lesser felony cases went from $50 to $112.
Kara Hoopis Manosh, president of the Rhode Island Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, says the rate increases have already stirred interest among lawyers she’s heard from. Applications to be added to the list of available lawyers are due in August.
“I am very confident that the pay raises that were granted by the court are going to have an immediate impact,” Hoopis Manosh said.
The raises were recommended by a committee – which included Geiselman and Hoopis Manosh – that Suttell created last year. The chief justice also asked the criminal defense lawyers association to help with education and training for court-appointed attorneys.
In his executive order, Suttell simplified the recertification requirements for court-appointed attorneys and instituted technological improvements so that the payment process for indigent defense will be easier.
These measures will “unquestionably” help improve the quality of representation for indigent clients, Hoopis Manosh said.
“Increasing the number of eligible attorneys and [the association] assisting in training those attorneys and constantly meeting the demands of the difficult work of being a criminal defense attorney in general – all of that will add up to improved representation for the indigent,” Hoopis Manosh said.
