When three old friends, Robin Steinberg, David Feige and Dan Arshack, started Bronx Defenders, there was a deliberate intention of providing their indigent clients “holistic” services. By this, they meant that their purpose wasn’t just to beat the case, as would be the scope of ordinary criminal defense, but to help their clients become happy, successful, law-abiding citizens.
While beating the rap was their primary goal, helping clients beyond their legal problems was their ethos. It was, at the time, a novel and very progressive approach for an indigent defense organization. None of the founders remain at Bronx Defenders for various reasons, but the ethos remains. And that, apparently, has given rise to a stumbling block that has caused Bronx Defenders to lose the tune, as its staff has now been on strike for a week and its union has rejected an eminently fair proposal to settle.
Today marks one week since unionized staff at The Bronx Defenders began a strike.
I want to explain plainly what we have offered, where the disagreement remains, and why we believe our proposal is necessary to protect both our staff and the people we represent.
At BxD, everyone is a public defender. Every role is essential to providing the best defense possible, and our proposal raises pay for everyone:
- Increasing first-year social worker salary from $85,600 to $90,000, with an average increase of approximately 6%, or $6,400, across the scale
- Increasing first-year attorney salary from $85,600 to $95,000, with larger increases, ranging from 12%-15%, across the attorney scale
- Adding pay for investigators, Homicide Practice advocates, and holiday arraignment shifts
- Expanding sabbatical and parental leave, leave pool access, student loan reimbursement, retirement benefits, and increasing the annual cost-of-living adjustment to 3%
Union representatives rejected this offer.
Nobody becomes a public defender to become rich, but that doesn’t mean they should starve or be homeless either. That’s true of the lawyers who defend their clients against criminal charges. That’s true of the social workers who seek to improve their clients lives so they don’t end up being back in the dock, if possible. But as Executive Director Juval Scott explains, the circumstances for lawyers and social workers aren’t quite the same.
The union’s representatives claim that creating separate attorney and social work salary scales undervalues social work. We disagree. Social work is foundational to our model. And, while our social workers are already paid above broad regional and public sector benchmarks, our proposal would raise their compensation further. The proposed $90,000 starting salary is well above the approximately $71,300 annualized mean wage for community and social service occupations in the New York metropolitan area.
At the same time, attorney compensation has fallen too far behind comparable legal work. Attorneys are leaving BxD after two to four years, just as they are gaining the courtroom experience our clients, teams, and newer staff rely on. And when we ask them why they are leaving, the answer is almost always money. We must pay our attorneys more.
The concept of indigent defenders going on strike is, in itself, controversial. While on a picket line, who is standing next to the defendants as the prosecution of their cases proceeds without them? Being a lawyer isn’t just a job, a financial proposition, but a duty owed to a defendant to protect them from the ravages of the state even if it comes at the financial expense of the lawyer. That’s what being a professional means. The client comes first, even if that means it comes at the lawyer’s expense. Scott says that they are still providing that representation, although it seems unlikely that they are doing so in the same manner as would happen if there were no strike.
Still, keeping experienced lawyers is critical to the zealous defense of the indigent. Lawyers leaving due to inadequate pay after two to four years means that the cadre of experienced lawyers falls short of that needed to fulfill the mission. If that’s what’s happening, then Bronx Defenders must pay their attorneys more. Not because there is some conceptual justification for parity with social workers to demonstrate that they value their services as much as lawyers, but to fulfill the basic function of an indigent defense organization. You can have all the social workers in the world on board, but without competent and experienced lawyers, you have no criminal defense. Like it or not, that remains the primary function of the Bronx Defenders.
Yes, it is ironic that we are fighting with our union representatives to pay our attorneys more. And it is frustrating that they seem to be prioritizing their own agenda over the very real day-to-day concerns of our workers, our clients, and our organization. Our goal remains an agreement that brings our staff back together and protects the quality of defense the people of the Bronx deserve. We remain hopeful that such an agreement is possible.
Would the union be happier if lawyers were paid the same as social workers, but at the social worker pay scale? Would that prove they were valued equally? Bear in mind that the social workers would be paid substantially more than the norm, while the lawyers are paid a fraction of what first year associate make at Biglaw. Lawyers have to endure three years of law school, including both the tedium as well as tuition. Social workers do not. One can fully appreciate the contribution social workers bring to the holistic ethos of Bronx Defenders services while still recognizing the reality that there are very real pragmatic reasons that the lawyers must be paid more.
The proposal by Bronx Defenders to the Union is fair and right. End the strike and fulfill the mission of winning cases and help defendants. Never forget the primary reason why Bronx Defenders exists, and if that’s not good enough for you, maybe indigent defense isn’t right for you and you should get that sweet social worker gig on Wall Street.
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
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So incredibly unfair. The janitors & receptionist just get scraps of what’s left.
Not to nitpick but it seems inapposite to compare PD salaries to BL salaries. A more meaningful comparison would be PD salaries to salaries at CDL firms which is presumably where these people are going.
I looked at the union’s Instagram page (seriously, no website?) and it looks like there some other sticking points about working conditions as well. I don’t know enough about what they do to evaluate those points (i.e. hybrid TW viability).
Why the hell should social workers get paid what lawyers get?
I delt with state and city social workers for the five years I worked for the Salvation Army and have been dealing with them the last six years because my grandchildren were taken from their mother and one of them was sex trafficked, due to CPS social workers.
Being in the mining business, I’ve also been dealing with lawyers for the past several years.
Mining and water rights law is an esoteric field and while I haven’t had any contact with lawyers doing criminal defense, I would bet that it is just as unique and needs the experience and training to be effective. Lawyers on the whole are intelligent and knowledgeable.
Besides, lawyers get several years of extra schooling that social workers don’t.
Social workers, on the other hand, go into the field because it’s easy. Frankly, anyone can do the work, and you don’t need a degree in the field to be effective. The best social workers I ever met were a retired Marine Lt.Col running a homeless shelter and a Salvation Army minister doing drug counseling. The Marine had a degree in military science, and the minister had a HS diploma.
The rest of them were as useless as tits on a boar hog. SAT scores for social workers run 1022-1050 and for lawyers around 1200. (Values from CHATGPT so take it for what it’s worth for the actual values.)
It doesn’t take a degree to do social work, just some training and familiarization with regulations and common sense. Parents do social work all the time with their kids.
As a side note, I found that 99.99% of degreed social workers getting paid by bureaucracies fall into three categories. There are the fresh out of college and are full of enthusiasm and going to change the world. They burn out and leave after 12-18 months of minimal accomplishment and being beaten down by the system. The second group is retired on the job and doing the minimal to get by until retirement. The third group thrives on others misery. Unfortunately, this group seems to be attracted to CPS.
So no, the social workers are not worth what lawyers get paid.
And don’t get me started on CPS and how it destroys children.
(Side note – I’ve met TSA workers more intelligent than social workers. Ref a past SJ blog post.)
I will differ with you on social work skills and compensation. Becoming a Licensed Clinical Social Worker LCSW is almost as difficult as becoming a lawyer. You need a Master’s degree, several years of supervised practice and a licensing exam plus continuing education. An LCSW is more psychologist than case manager so you may not have encountered the real thing. $90,000 does seem like a lot since my wife was making $50,000 full time in Oregon in 2016, but was getting the same pay part time in a hospital ER before going into private practice.
Now unlicensed positions with title “social worker” are another kettle of occasionally rotten fish and the State of Oregon’s CPS performance rates firing squads.