This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
In 2025, a single lawyer in Kings County represented almost 600 poor people accused of crimes. That figure, which rivals some of the worst public defense caseloads in the nation, does not include the attorney’s private personal injury clients.
The high caseloads in Kings are part of a new report on California’s privatized public defender systems, which leave criminal defendants in many rural counties without access to appropriate representation. Two dozen California counties use flat-fee contracts to pay for indigent defense, meaning they pay private lawyers a fixed amount, regardless of how much work they do on a case. The arrangements disincentivize litigating and investigating cases and have been banned in other parts of the country.
“Flat fees place a financial conflict of interest in between the lawyer and the client,” said Josh Schwartz of The Wren Collective, a nonprofit organization that authored the report. “The fee is always going to be less profitable the more time and attention is spent on each case.”
Even the most permissive caseload standards recommend no more than 150 felonies or 400 misdemeanors per year. The report, which includes data from nine counties, shows that some lawyers working under flat-fee contracts in California have more than three times as many cases.
A CalMatters investigation last year highlighted the problems with flat-free systems, focusing on a law firm that provides public defense in five of these counties. The firm, Fitzgerald, Alvarez and Ciummo, has gained a reputation as the WalMart of public defense. Our reporting found that its lawyers were less likely than other defense attorneys to investigate cases, challenge law enforcement’s evidence in legal motions and push their cases to trial. Defendants in these counties said they were pressured to accept plea deals and felt their lawyers were unwilling to fight for them in court.
Following the story’s publication, residents and community organizations in Madera County, where the firm has provided indigent defense for close to 40 years, began advocating for changes in local public defender services. In June, the Madera supervisors decided to extend the firm’s contract for just six months – rather than renew it for an additional four years – while they determine how to improve the system.
Linette Lomeli, executive director of the Madera Coalition for Community Justice, spearheaded some of the recent advocacy efforts in Madera County alongside the local chapter of the NAACP.
“I was in complete shock,” she said of learning about the caseloads and practices of Madera’s public defense contractor. “It’s super hard to ignore once you see the data.”
California is one of just two states that provide no funding for poor people’s basic criminal defense, allowing its counties to structure local public defender systems however they see fit. Flat-fee systems, which are cheaper than operating a public defender office with government lawyers, appeal to local politicians with tight budgets.
But the model has long-term financial implications. Seven of the eight counties with the highest jail and prison incarceration rates have flat-fee contracts. Kings County, which has the highest known caseloads in California, also has the highest incarceration rate in the state.
