Public lawyers’ salary gap grows wider

From The Wichita Eagle and Kansas Defenders:

Steve Osburn is chief of the Sedgwick County public defenders — the attorneys who represent people charged with crimes but who can’t afford to hire lawyers.

As head of the Wichita office, Osburn is the second-highest paid public defender in Kansas. But his $77,000 salary would rank Osburn 14th if he worked at the Sedgwick County District Attorneys’ office.

Discrepancies in compensation between public defenders and prosecutors go beyond their paychecks. It also affects access to legal training that could give prosecutors an advantage in the courtroom.

Both offices vigorously defend the talents of their attorneys. They say they do their jobs as much out of dedication as for money.

“Justice shouldn’t be for sale, and I believe most of the people who come to work for our office believe that,” Osburn said.

Still, prosecutors who press felony charges in Wichita make about $20,000 more a year than the court-appointed lawyers across the aisle.

Prosecutors working for District Attorney Nola Foulston make a median salary of $64,000 a year, according to the most recent numbers available. Foulston makes nearly $136,000.

Public defenders, meanwhile, make a median salary of little more than $44,000 a year.

That salary is so low that one Wichita public defender, German-born Klaus Dieter Mueller,nearly had his visa revoked because U.S. immigration officials considered him “underemployed” because of his pay.

There are 22 attorneys in the Sedgwick County Regional Public Defender’s office, handling 4,342 cases this year, according to theBoard of Indigents’ Defense Services.

The caseload has increased each year, from 3,866 three years ago.

That’s about 197 cases for each attorney to handle in a year.

And the salary gap has grown with the caseload.

In 2003, the last time The Eagle examined salaries of public attorneys in Sedgwick County District Court, prosecutors made 28 percent more than public defenders.

Now the difference is 33 percent.

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