AUSTIN, Texas (WOWO) — A nationwide shortage of public defenders is leaving people accused of crimes waiting days, weeks or even months in jail without attorneys, while overworked lawyers struggle to keep up with mounting caseloads and states face growing questions about their ability to meet constitutional obligations.

The problem is affecting communities across the country, from Texas and California to Oregon, Pennsylvania, Kansas and New Mexico. Public defense officials say attorney shortages, retirements, burnout and competition from higher-paying private law firms are making it increasingly difficult to provide legal representation to people who cannot afford to hire their own lawyers.

In Texas, the state lost 1,345 attorneys representing indigent defendants between 2014 and 2024, according to research from Texas A&M University’s Public Policy Research Institute. That amounts to nearly one-quarter of the state’s indigent defense attorneys, even as the overall number of lawyers in Texas grew by more than 25,000.

The Sixth Amendment Center, a Massachusetts-based organization that studies access to legal representation, ranked Texas 46th nationally in per-capita spending on indigent defense in a 2023 study. The report put the state’s spending at $9.19 per capita.

The constitutional right to an attorney for defendants who cannot afford one was established by a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1963. The decision required states to provide legal counsel to indigent criminal defendants.

But the extent of the current nationwide shortage remains difficult to measure. Aditi Goel, executive director of the Sixth Amendment Center, told Stateline there are no comprehensive national statistics showing how many people are going without lawyers or how long they must wait for representation.

“It’s a complete black box,” Goel said, describing the lack of information about whether people are receiving the legal representation they are entitled to.

Research from individual states, however, points to significant gaps between the number of available attorneys and the demand for their services.

In Oregon, the state Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that more than 1,400 criminal cases had to be dismissed because there were not enough lawyers to represent the defendants. A 2022 American Bar Association report estimated Oregon needed an additional 1,296 attorneys — more than three times the number it had at the time — to meet its constitutional obligations.

Pennsylvania faces a similar shortage. A 2024 study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice found that the state’s approximately 850 public defenders were assigned enough cases to require about 1,200 attorneys to provide adequate representation. The study found 60 of Pennsylvania’s 66 counties did not have enough lawyers.

Kansas also faces a substantial staffing gap. A report issued last year by Southern Methodist University’s Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center estimated the state needed 277 additional public defenders beyond its existing roster of 123 lawyers. A 2022 study found New Mexico needed another 602 full-time attorneys to supplement its 295 public defenders.

In Texas, the shrinking workforce is being driven partly by experienced lawyers retiring and too few younger attorneys entering public defense. Many new lawyers instead pursue jobs at private firms that can offer better financial opportunities.

Public defenders also face increasingly complex cases involving video evidence, body-camera footage and other material that can take considerable time to review. At the same time, growing prosecution budgets can add to the imbalance between the resources available to each side.

The Texas Indigent Defense Commission estimates that one in three attorneys handling indigent defense cases in the state is overburdened, with caseloads exceeding the commission’s guidelines.
Keith Lauerman, an Austin public defender who is nearing the end of a 33-year legal career, said the shortage reflects a generational problem. At 70, Lauerman plans to become a Red Cross volunteer after years spent working as both an attorney and a schoolteacher.

“It’s a big demographic problem of lawyers aging out, nobody to replace them,” Lauerman said.
The pressures are also mounting in California, where San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju was cited for contempt by Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman after announcing that his office would periodically stop accepting a small percentage of new cases because of rising workloads.

Raju said active misdemeanor cases at his office increased 78% between 2019 and 2026, while active felony cases rose 56%. He was also assessed $26,000 in sanctions, although the fines have not taken effect while the case remains on appeal.

Los Angeles County’s public defender agency, the largest public defense organization in the country, has also faced scrutiny following a study that found its attorneys were carrying workloads more than twice the level considered appropriate for effective representation.

In response to the concerns, a new commission co-organized by former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin is working to push California toward new standards and legal regulations for public defense.
“There was a crisis playing out in plain view and people weren’t paying attention,” Boudin said. He is the founding executive director of the Criminal Law & Justice Center at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Texas illustrates how the way public defense is funded can complicate efforts to address the problem. In roughly 15 states, counties bear responsibility for representing indigent defendants. Texas provides some assistance through its Indigent Defense Commission, which distributes grants that partly reimburse counties for their costs.

Geoff Burkhart, executive director of Community Legal Services in Travis County, which oversees two organizations responsible for indigent defense, said the shortage has become a serious local challenge.
“Travis County, like a lot of counties, we have an attorney shortage,” Burkhart said. “We don’t have enough lawyers for public defense.”

The strain is particularly evident in Travis County, home to Austin, where the Capital Area Private Defender Service and the Travis County Public Defender’s Office work to provide representation to people who cannot afford private counsel.

Matthew Shrum, a defense attorney affiliated with the Capital Area Private Defender Service since 2023, previously carried a caseload of more than 500 cases, according to his account to Stateline. The nonprofit manages appointments of private attorneys who take court-appointed cases, while the county’s public defender office employs staff attorneys and support personnel.

The two organizations spent a combined $29 million on indigent defense services during fiscal year 2024 and handled approximately 17,000 cases, with the Capital Area Private Defender Service taking the larger share.

Despite those resources, officials say they continue to struggle to find enough attorneys to handle the workload.

At a September budget hearing before Travis County commissioners, supporters of both organizations called for increased funding. Kaylee Brilhart, a third-year attorney at the county public defender’s office, warned that the system had reached its capacity and that some people were remaining in jail for months without attorneys.

“I have clients who express gratitude just because I answer their calls from the jail or I respond to their texts or phone calls,” Brilhart said. “We work miracles in our office every day.”
Adeola Ogunkeyede, the county’s chief public defender, said the office remains committed to providing high-quality representation but acknowledged the staffing challenge.

“There are not enough attorneys to represent people,” Ogunkeyede said.
Bradley Hargis, executive director of the Capital Area Private Defender Service, said what began as occasional difficulty finding lawyers for cases has become a persistent problem. The resulting workloads, he said, put attorneys at risk of overwork and burnout, potentially worsening the shortage.

The staffing declines have been particularly sharp in Texas’ major metropolitan counties. Travis County and Bexar County, which includes San Antonio, have each seen their pools of indigent defense attorneys shrink by 50% over the past five years, amid a 26% decline across the state’s urban counties.

Rural Texas has also lost ground. The number of public defenders in rural counties fell 29% over the past decade, dropping from 1,926 attorneys to 1,371.

Some communities are trying to address the shortage by sharing resources across county lines. In the Texas Hill Country, Bandera County Judge Richard Evans helped rally neighboring jurisdictions to establish the five-county Hill Country Public Defenders Office after noticing a lack of available defense attorneys.
The organization, based in Boerne, has operated for nearly six years and now has 20 attorneys and a staff of 30. Chief Public Defender Karli Kennell said the regional model has helped reduce the number of people waiting in jail without legal representation.

Kennell said she wants her attorneys to serve as active advocates for their clients rather than simply process cases through plea agreements. She said she takes pride in the region’s progress, even as much of Texas continues to struggle with the shortage.

The stakes extend beyond staffing and court budgets. Public defense attorneys are responsible for protecting the rights of people accused of crimes, including those who have not been convicted. Delays in securing counsel can leave defendants in jail while their cases remain unresolved and limit their ability to challenge the allegations against them.

Pamela Metzger, executive director of Southern Methodist University’s Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center, said the consequences of those delays are fundamental to the justice system.
“Every day that an arrested person doesn’t have a lawyer is a day that their constitutional rights are being violated — period, full stop,” Metzger said.

The report was originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal, which republished the article by David Montgomery.