Public defense advocates are sounding the alarm over what they describe as an unsustainable and potentially unconstitutional system of representing poor defendants in several rural California counties, where flat-fee contracts have pushed individual attorneys’ caseloads to staggering levels.
According to a new report from The Wren Collective, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization, one attorney in Kings County handled nearly 600 criminal cases involving indigent clients in 2025 alone — a workload that stands among the heaviest recorded anywhere in the country. That total doesn’t even account for the same lawyer’s private personal injury practice on the side.
The findings build on an investigation CalMatters published last year that scrutinized California’s reliance on flat-fee arrangements to provide legal counsel to defendants who cannot afford their own attorneys. Under these contracts, used by roughly two dozen counties statewide, private law firms are paid a set amount regardless of how much time or effort a case actually requires. Critics say the structure creates a built-in incentive for attorneys to move cases quickly rather than investigate them thoroughly — a practice that has been outlawed elsewhere in the United States.
“Flat fees place a financial conflict of interest in between the lawyer and the client,” said Josh Schwartz, an attorney with The Wren Collective who helped author the report. “The fee is always going to be less profitable the more time and attention is spent on each case.”
Even under the most lenient professional guidelines, public defenders are not supposed to handle more than 150 felony cases or 400 misdemeanor cases annually. Yet the new report, which draws on data from nine California counties, found that some attorneys working under flat-fee deals are carrying caseloads more than triple that recommended limit.
Much of the scrutiny has centered on Fitzgerald, Alvarez and Ciummo, a law firm that holds public defense contracts in five California counties and has earned a reputation in legal circles as something of a discount chain for indigent defense. CalMatters’ earlier reporting found that attorneys with the firm were notably less likely than other public defenders to conduct independent investigations, file legal challenges against law enforcement evidence, or take cases to trial. Numerous defendants interviewed as part of that investigation said they felt rushed into accepting plea deals and that their attorneys showed little interest in fighting for them in court.
The fallout from that reporting has already reshaped the conversation in Madera County, where the firm has held the public defense contract for nearly four decades. Community groups and residents mobilized after the story ran, pressing county leaders to reconsider how legal services for low-income defendants are handled locally. In June, the Madera County Board of Supervisors opted to extend the firm’s contract for only six months, rather than approving a full four-year renewal, giving officials time to explore possible reforms.
Linette Lomeli, executive director of the Madera Coalition for Community Justice, helped lead that push alongside the local NAACP chapter.
“I was in complete shock,” Lomeli said, recalling her reaction upon learning just how overloaded the county’s public defense contractor had become. “It’s super hard to ignore once you see the data.”
California remains one of only two states in the nation that provides no dedicated state funding for indigent criminal defense, leaving each county to design its own system with little oversight. For cash-strapped local governments, flat-fee contracts are often far less expensive than maintaining a traditional public defender’s office staffed with government attorneys — making the model attractive to county leaders even as its consequences mount.
Those consequences appear to extend well beyond the courtroom. According to the report, seven of the eight California counties with the highest rates of jail and prison incarceration rely on flat-fee public defense contracts. Kings County, which the report identifies as having the heaviest attorney caseloads documented anywhere in the state, also holds the distinction of having California’s highest incarceration rate.
Original source: CalMatters
