ELIZABETHTOWN — The Essex County Bar Association’s input on how the county should tackle the continually escalating costs of its assigned counsel program is in the works after a committee of five ECBA members met last Thursday in Elizabethtown.

The association’s president, attorney Amy Quinn of Lake Placid, said the committee comprised of local lawyers met to discuss the recommendations county Attorney Dan Manning presented to the Essex County Board of Supervisors. The recommendations included a reduction in the amount paid to attorneys for time traveling to appearances, from $75 to $40, and the removal of mileage. Manning is asking the ECBA to agree to this, part of what he termed a “stopgap” solution to the increasing costs of assigned counsel that would save the county approximately $100,000.

Quinn said the ECBA still needs to run their recommendations by the entire bar association before it will make its own recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. Members of the ECBA will meet again on June 22, hopefully with Manning, Essex County Judge Richard Meyer, Essex County Sheriff Richard Cutting, Essex County District Attorney Kristy Sprague and Essex County Auditor Brenda Sullivan to address immediate and long term issues, Quinn said.

At Thursday’s meeting, Quinn said the ECBA committee made a list of the recommendations proposed by Manning and the Board of Supervisors that the committee deemed acceptable. One thing the committee would like to add: the county should also add an assigned counsel administrator.

“Things are moving forward,” Quinn said Tuesday. “I think (the ECBA committee) agrees and I believe it’s necessary we have an administrator. We haven’t had one in (about) 12 years and (assigned counsel administration) is not supposed to be left to the judge’s chamber — it’s supposed to be done by an administrator to determine if someone can have assigned counsel.

“(The ECBA committee) talked about compensation and what kind of expenses are reimbursable — travel and mileage,” Quinn added of the Thursday committee meeting. “(They) talked about trying to prevent overbilling, to try to find some sort of stopgap. Not that that’s been a huge problem, but just to find something there to address an issue if someone was found to have been overbilled.”

Quinn added that after Thursday’s meeting it appears the ECBA is not on board with Manning’s recommendations to reduce compensation for assigned counsel appearances and the removal of mileage.

“I would say it would be difficult,” Quinn said, “considering how geographically wide this county is, I would think it would be difficult to convince the bar that the attorneys shouldn’t be paid for their mileage.”

The ECBA president added she believes the biggest element of the assigned counsel program is family court, due to the large number of cases where numerous family members are entitled to an assigned attorney through state law.

“(With) many families we need an attorney provided to the mother and the father,” Quinn said, “And with many families, the grandparents are raising the children, and the grandparents, if they have custody of the child at the time of the case, they are entitled to assigned counsel too — there is a law. So some cases need as many as three attorneys.

Quinn, who has served as the ECBA’s president since January, said there is no strict timetable for when the county and ECBA will finalize its assigned counsel plan, though all parties are interested in expediting the process.

“I don’t have a target date,” she said, “but I’ve both told the board in writing and have told several supervisors who have addressed the matter with me privately that we are trying to move it along because I know the board wants to take action on this and I want to assist them as best we can in as timely a manner as we can. Of course, all of the attorneys on our committee have different schedules and are from different parts of the county, but I’ve asked them to work judiciously on this and move forward so that we can give the board what they are looking for.”

Quinn said if the county were to add an assigned counsel administrator the role would be tasked with looking over assigned counsel applications, making financial determinations, and cross-checking cases.

“(Such as) ‘Did Jon Jones already represent Mary Smith or did he represent Mary Smith’s ex (spouse),'” Quinn said. “Just kind of to weed out the conflicts.”

Quinn said the county this year has between 700 and 800 family court filings.

“A lot for a small county with so few attorneys to take the cases,” she said.

Manning has presented the Board of Supervisors with several different options and recommendations about how to cut assigned counsel costs to help meet new state mandates. The ideas range from contracting with attorneys outside of Essex County to having the county’s Public Defender’s Office take over Family Court assigned counsel, to regionalizing assigned counsel with neighboring Clinton and Franklin counties.

One state mandate is specific to the terms of the Hurrell-Harring Act, which mandates that indigent defendants have quality counsel at arraignment. The state has tasked the county with implementing the plan by April 1, 2023.

The second mandate is specific to revised income figures that will enable anyone at or below 250-percent of the federal poverty guidelines to be eligible for assigned counsel. This year for a household of a single person, that would include anyone making up to $30,015 annually.

The third mandate is the controversial “Raise the Age” directive signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this month, which will result in 16- and 17-year-old defendants having their cases heard as juveniles in family court. The legislation will result in some counties having to create or adjust their youth courts to handle felony-level cases, among other new costs.