AP Wire | 01/01/2005 | Defense lawyers for poor clients say they need more money

AP Wire | 01/01/2005 | Defense lawyers for poor clients say they need more money: "Posted on Sat, Jan. 01, 2005 Click here to find out more! Defense lawyers for poor clients say they need more money Associated Press ROCK HILL, S.C. - Some private lawyers who defend clients that can't pay for an attorney say it's time to increase the amount of money the state pays them for their service. South Carolina pays private lawyers $40 an hour out of court and $60 an hour in court to defend poor clients. That figure has not changed in 11 years, said Tyre Lee, executive director of the South Carolina Office of Indigent Defense, which pays the appointed lawyers out of state tax dollars doled out by the Legislature. In contrast, lawyers for indigent clients in the federal court system get paid $90 and have a lighter caseload, Lee said. South Carolina has a public defender system for indigent defense, but conflicts and multiple defendant cases push thousands of cases every year to private lawyers who must take some free cases and in some cases choose to work for free. York County Bar Association President Gary Lemel said he knows some lawyers who don't submit vouchers for payment because they know the system is almost broke. 'Most lawyers just consider it part of being a lawyer,' he said. Arthur Lee Gaston, president of the Chester County Bar Association and a longtime Chester lawyer, said he loses money on appointed cases. And in a small bar association like Chester County with less than 20 lawyers, there have been times when many of those lawyers are appointed on a single, complex family court case at the same time, he said. 'But that is only before the state money runs out,' Gaston said. 'After that we are working for free.' The problem isn't new. More than a decade ago, York County lawyer Melvin Roberts sued the state over payment for indigent cases when the rate was only $10 an hour out of court. Roberts compared the system to slavery "