Some attorneys are making millions of public dollars representing poor defendants through a long-criticized appointment system that has become a key driver of Harris County’s budget woes despite Commissioners Court aggressively ramping up funding for the public defender’s office in recent years.
Unlike many urban areas, Harris County relies largely on private attorneys to satisfy the Constitutional requirement that defendants who cannot afford their own counsel be given taxpayer-funded lawyers. The cost of this system has ballooned in recent years, and critics say it risks leaving countless defendants with inadequate help in court, as a new county audit shows many private attorneys continue to take on far more cases than experts recommend.
Hoping to save money and ensure each case gets adequate attention, Commissioners Court began increasing funding to the public defender’s office three years ago. The goal was for staff attorneys to soon take on half of all cases in which defendants cannot afford their own counsel.
Public defenders are handling a growing share of cases. But county leaders are now entering the fourth year of what was intended to be a three-year plan and the office is still representing less than a quarter of all indigent defendants – partly because judges often choose to assign private attorneys rather than public defenders.
Indigent defense costs also have continued to rise. One cause is a 2023 policy change intended to spur private attorneys to spend more time on their poor clients’ cases by paying them for time they spend working cases outside of the courthouse.
Yet a new county audit shows dozens of attorneys are carrying far more cases than anyone can effectively work, experts said.
The Texas Indigent Defense Commission recommends attorneys handle no more than 128 felonies or 226 misdemeanors per year. But an audit published Aug. 13 shows dozens of appointed attorneys exceeded those benchmarks between 2023 and 2025 – with one attorney collecting payment for 1,000 felonies in a single year, and others handling hundreds.
“Some defense counsels are pulling in $1 million a year,” said Thomas Hogan, an assistant professor at the South Texas College of Law. “That’s ridiculous, when a public defender is probably making somewhere between $100,000 to $200,000, regardless of whether they’re handling five capital murder cases or a bunch of misdemeanors.”
Commissioners continue to grapple with the climbing costs amid a projected $129 million deficit for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.
Budget officials expect a modest drop in indigent defense costs for the next fiscal year, but their estimates have consistently been too optimistic. These costs in the current budget year are projected to be $126 million — $23 million over budget and more than double what the county spent 5 years ago.
County budget director Daniel Ramos said at an Aug. 17 budget meeting that indigent defense and jail outsourcing costs had “driven at least half of this deficit over the last few years.”
Pay rates for private attorneys are set by the county’s district court judges, over whom commissioners have no authority. Ramos said “I live in fear” that the judges would choose to again increase the rates appointed attorneys can charge the county, which are already far higher than in peer counties.
By my rough count, 12 of the 44 district and county criminal court judges are Republicans, so while I’m sure they have contributed to this problem it’s got to be a big issue with Democratic judges as well. And as a voter and a big proponent of the public defender’s office, I want to know how much each judge is responsible for private defense attorney costs. There may be some reasons for it – a disproportionate percentage of serious felonies handled in their courts, an effort to finish off a case backlog, other factors, who knows. But we the voters, who lack a lot of the key information about the judges we vote on, deserve to know so we can make better choices. This should be public information. We should be able to put some pressure on the judges at the top of this list to change their ways, or see it become a campaign issue against them. That’s how this should work. Again, there may be good reasons for the expenses they are ringing up. I’m open to that, and I want to hear about it. But first we need the data. Let’s get it.
This story is very one sided. There is a lot of information that is left out. The private defense bar cost less per case than the pd office. The pd office does not offer better outcomes than the private defense bar. The price paid to the private defense bar does not just pay for attorneys. It also pays for staff, office space, supplies, and research tools. The article puts together our sourcing inmates with attorney cost, when the real problem is the outsourcing.
These judges are not just wasting county money, they are ensuring that every person’s constitutional rights are being upheld.
Firstly, the county is spending millions more on a PD’s Office that is only handling 20% of the cases. Secondly, the vast majority of Court Appointed Lawyers are making about 20% of what they should make on any given case had that case walked into their office. So something you would have charged a private client $50,000.00 for, the county will pay no more than $10,000.00. Thirdly, the county is spending millions on a Managed Assigned Counsel system to handle a problem that didn’t exist & those are dollars that don’t go directly to indigent representation. Finally, you have to have so many trials to verdict, CLE & years of experience before you can even be on the list. Sadly, the vast majority of attorneys in Harris County do not even qualify to take court appointed cases. So the tax payers of Harris County are actually getting a lot of bang for their buck when it comes to Court Appointed Lawyers.
Thomas Hogan’s comparison with the public defender’s office is not apt. Some of those high-earning private attorneys are getting paid for death penalty cases, which the public defender’s office does not handle, and which should earn significantly higher payments due to the extraordinary amount of time and effort they require. Further, it ignores that the PDO’s budget includes a significant amount for non-trial attorneys, non-attorney staff, a bloated management structure, and overhead costs. The office’s budget for 2026 is $69,191,863; the office currently has somewhere around 250 attorneys.