The Office of State Public Defender (OPD) announced Thursday they plan to enter into collective bargaining to increase the attorney rate with the goal of helping east case backlog and staffing shortages.
Some private attorneys in western Montana said they would no longer accept cases until the state brought their pay in line with their counterparts in Yellowstone County.
HELENA, Mont. (AP) Several months after the state of Montana said it was spending $1.5 million in federal pandemic relief money to shore up the public defender's office in the Billings area and offer higher pay to contract attorneys, a group of attorneys in western Montana said they want a pay increase too.
The state public defender s office has challenged an order holding the agency in contempt for failing to assign attorneys to defendants quickly enough.
Lawmakers expressed concern that the committee was unaware when they left the biennial session in April that OPD was on the cusp of what Sen. Ryan Lynch, D-Butte, called a