Get this: Things are so bad for prosecutors in Chicago that they have to get partisans to write “commentaries” begging for more pay. Articles and editorials arguing for more pay are something you can find almost daily in newspapers around the country. The thing is, all of that text is focused on the problem of poor pay and resources for defense attorneys, not prosecutors. Clearly, Chicago has been doing something right!
Check this out from the “commentary”:
The typical prosecutor’s annual pay before then was about $63,000, compared with $73,000 for public defenders. Since then, prosecutors received a raise that would bring them closer to “parity” with the public defenders, but they still lag about 8 percent behind. This while the total number of active felony cases per attorney is 50 in the public defender’s office and 109 in the state’s attorney’s office.
Overworked and underpaid prosecutors and public defenders with reasonable salaries and caseloads? Yeah, that sounds like a little bit of paradise to me.
More tidbits from comments on the blog of Dennis Byrne, the partisan who wrote this “commentary” asking for more prosecutor pay:
- Here you can see the salaries in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office. Wow. I was clearly given the wrong information a year ago when I was told that PDs started in Chicago at $35k/year. It appears starting salaries are actually about $43k, which is the same as we get in Montana. According to a Chicago prosecutor, defender “salaries are consistently as much as 20-25% higher than their State’s Attorney counterparts with identical start dates. A study revealed that APDs are paid on average $9,100 more per year than ASAs with comparable experience & tenure. “
- Public defenders are apparently union members; prosecutors are not. Advantage: Union!
- Supposedly (and again, this is from the comments on David Byrne’s blog so who knows if it’s accurate), “the PDs Office receives double the amount for training that the SAO receives, $70,000 vs. $140,000 per year!”
Comments
4 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.It’s even worse for us down south. My P.D. counterpart makes twice as much as I do and I don’t even crack 40K per year. And the P.D. can take private clients in criminal cases too. I’m conflicted from doing that, obviously. But, my P.D. counterpart does have to pay for office expenses. Even taking this into consideration, however, the P.D. still makes more than I do. What a sad world.
What’s “sad” about it? Would it be equally sad if you made more than the PD? The only un-sad result is if the pay is identical?
You’re free to take a PD job yourself, you know.
I love it when cops feel they must resort to economics to justify their jobs.
typically, people just assume that attorneys who prosecute not only make more than attorneys who defend but are justified when they are.
I love this story. Thanks.
Unfortunately, the Chicago PD had to lay off 15 attorneys this year…The State’s lower salaries for trial attorneys are due to the lack of longevity of their staff, the PD union which gets raises for the PD’s and the way raises are split up by the State’s Attorneys’ office. ASA management makes at least $10,000 per year more than comparable management in the PD office (and they get cars!) – so it’s not all rosey here financially!