Massachusetts Defense Attorneys Enter Third Month on Strike
By Navruz Baum
Bar advocates rally at the Massachusetts State House — July 31, 2025. Photo: Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald
Many of Massachusetts’ 2,600 bar advocates are on strike for higher pay. These private attorneys—responsible for 80% of the state’s public defense cases—earn just $65 an hour, well below the rates in neighboring states. They’re demanding an immediate increase to $100 an hour, $125 next year, and an annual cost-of-living adjustment tied to inflation.
After years of stagnant compensation, the Massachusetts defense bar is in crisis. “We’ve seen hundreds of bar advocates leave the program because of the low pay,” says Sean Delaney, a bar advocate of nearly 30 years. “The system is crumbling.” As independent contractors, bar advocates must cover the full cost of running a law practice—malpractice insurance, office space, a website, and more—out of their hourly rate. After business expenses, many simply can’t afford rent, student loans, or other basic needs. The resulting shortage has left defendants languishing in jail for days while courts scramble to find counsel.
Workers have spent years lobbying the legislature with little success. So on May 27, they began refusing new cases. Their strike has shuttered courts in Middlesex and Suffolk—two of the state’s most populous counties—and slowed proceedings across the Commonwealth. Courts have been forced to release incarcerated defendants after the state failed to assign counsel within the required seven-day timeline—and even dismiss charges in cases where no attorney was assigned by a second, 45-day, deadline.
The state has responded with repression rather than negotiation. For decades, Massachusetts has used an independent contractor model for bar advocates—a structure which legally bars them from unionizing and has long been used to suppress worker power across the economy. Its latest tactics are a continuation of that same divide-and-conquer playbook. “Not one [state legislative leader] has had the common decency to reach out to a public advocate,” says Delaney. Instead of engaging with the collective, the agency overseeing public defense is contacting individual attorneys pressuring them to break the strike, and the legislature is floating antitrust threats in an attempt to scare them back to work. Some attorneys have crossed the line—but many remain defiant.
The state is also pressuring its publicly employed staff attorneys—who handle the other 20% of cases—to take on more work and contain the crisis. But these non-unionized workers are already stretched thin—many at the agency’s 40-case cap—and have expressed solidarity with the striking bar advocates.
Despite attempts to break the strike, the legislature is clearly feeling the pressure. On July 31, it passed a $10 hourly raise—well below the workers’ demands, but a clear sign the strike is working.
The bar advocate strike follows an ongoing rolling strike by legal services workers across seven New York City nonprofits that began earlier this summer. While those workers are employees at city-contracted organizations, not independent contractors, their demands are strikingly similar: fair pay, sustainable workloads, and the resources to truly serve their clients.
The struggle in Massachusetts is still unfolding. But one thing is clear: a growing wave of public defenders is taking the fight beyond courtrooms and lobbying meetings—wielding labor stoppages to challenge an exploitative justice system.