Brooklyn Defender Services was one of the legal aid organizations that participated in the Day of Action for Public Defense on Thursday. Eagle file photo by Ryan Schwach 
By Noah Powelson
The city’s largest criminal legal aid organizations joined a national protest on Thursday, warning the constitutional right to counsel is being “systematically dismantled” as public defenders across the country struggle to keep up with mounting cases.
On Thursday, the city’s five largest public defender groups voiced their support for San Francisco’s leading public defender, Mano Raju, who was held in contempt and fined for vowing not to take on more felony cases one day a week.
Raju claimed his office, and other public defender offices in California, are overloaded by cases but receive far less government funding compared to the state’s district attorney’s offices. In May of last year, Raju said his office would refuse to take on certain new cases because his office didn’t have the capacity.
A California state judge in January found Raju’s office did have the capacity to take on more cases and ordered them to do so. Since then, the public defender’s office of San Francisco has refused to take on 26 cases. The judge found Raju in contempt of court for each case, fining the chief public defender $26,000.
Standing in solidarity with Raju, public defender organizations across the country organized a Day of Action for Public Defense on Thursday to call on state and federal governments to better fund public defender organizations. Participants in the day of action, which included The Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services, Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, The Bronx Defenders and New York County Defender Services, dressed in black to signify their support, and said that years of underfunding has undermined the integrity of the courts.
“What happened in San Francisco is a warning to all of us,” the organizations said in a joint statement. “When a public defender is punished for refusing to take on workloads that make effective representation impossible, it sends a chilling message — that the system values speed over justice, and appearances over constitutional rights. No attorney can provide meaningful representation when stretched beyond capacity, and no court system committed to the rule of law should demand it.”
Public defenders have historically received less funding than their district attorney counterparts, and legal aid advocates have called on New York to address their own underfunding this past year.
San Francisco Chief Public Defender Mano Raju was held in contempt for not taking on more felony cases, claiming his office was overextended.AP file photo by Jeff Chiu 
Last March, officials with The Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services, New York County Defender Services and the Bronx Defenders told the City Council they need an additional $100 million to $150 million in the coming year to recruit and retain their public defense attorneys.
The public defender groups said the new funding would go directly toward attorney salaries, which begin around $80,000 to $90,000 at most organizations in the five boroughs.
Salaries for public defense attorneys in places like Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Oakland and San Francisco begin at upward of $100,000. The same is true for public defenders in at least seven counties in upstate New York, according to Stan Germán, the executive director of New York County Defender Services.
The request for more funding also comes as over 2,000 attorneys and legal aid staffers will be negotiating new salaries later this year.
Attorneys at five public defender groups will see their contracts expire at the end of June, and over 1,000 attorneys at the Legal Aid Society will begin negotiating their salaries around the same time, though their contract does not expire this year.
But while public defenders struggle to claw as much of a salary increase as they can, legal aid advocates say police and district attorneys see regular pay growth each year.
“Year after year, this city and this Council has found money to keep police officers and district attorneys in their jobs and guarantee them a pension,” Jane Fox, the chair of the chapter of the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys at the Legal Aid Society, said in a City Council meeting last March. “While at the same time, our union members have been pushed out, told they are not worthy of an affordable wage or dignified retirement because of the people we represent every day.”
In the city’s 2026 budget, over $633 million was allocated to the city’s five district attorneys and the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, a 23 percent increase compared to the previous year.
The NYPD’s budget has also steadily grown over the past decade and currently sits at $6.4 billion, though Mayor Zohran Mamdani plans to keep police funding relatively flat in his preliminary budget.
While caseloads for the city and state have shown downward trends in various categories in recent years, legal aid advocates argue more is needed to ensure low-income New Yorkers get their fair day in court.
“We call on our government funders, both in Albany and at City Hall, to address longstanding pay disparities, invest in hiring and retaining public defense staff, and ensure that caseloads are consistent with national standards for effective representation,” the groups said. “A fair and functioning legal system depends on strong public defense, which is rooted in the U.S. Constitution. Our staff, the low-income New Yorkers we represent, and the integrity of our courts depend on it.”
