Some San Diego lawyers are going without pay on federal criminal cases. Here's why

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- Some defense lawyers in San Diego are going months without pay after the government's budget to pay them, has run out.

Criminal Justice Act (CJA) panel attorneys are appointed federal cases to represent clients who don't qualify for a federal defender and can't afford a private attorney.

According to the U.S. Courts, more than 90% of federal criminal case defendants are appointed counsel because they cannot afford their own lawyer. Nationwide, 40 percent of cases are assigned to an attorney who has agreed to serve on the CJA panel.

Criminal Defense Attorney Fernanda Ezquerro, with Ezquerro Law Group based in San Diego, is one of the about 12,000 attorneys serving on the CJA panel.

Ezquerro said her work as a CJA attorney takes up anywhere from 25 to 50% of her workload, and the others are private clients.

But, Ezquerro and all other CJA attorney's have not received a paycheck from the federal government for the last few months.

Judge Amy St. Eve, chair of the Judicial Conference’s Budget Committee, said in a news release on the US Courts website, “The right of a criminal defendant to effective counsel regardless of the defendant’s economic status is guaranteed under our Constitution and the Criminal Justice Act. That fundamental right is at risk because we ran out of funding on July 3 to pay the private practice attorneys appointed to represent federal defendants.” 

CJA panel attorneys are paid from a fund that's approved by Congress. CJA attorneys typically work for a fraction of the cost they would charge a private client.

“I currently have about 20 CJA cases," Ezquerro said. “The types of cases range from illegal entry, illegal reentry, which are your most basic, to large conspiracies to trafficking humans, guns, drugs.”

According to the U.S. Courts, payments have been frozen in the past, but only for a few weeks, not months.

"A lot of us are not in it for the money, because Congress sets our rates. We could charge a lot more for these cases if they were retained. But we do believe in the cause, we believe in the constitution, we love our job. It's not an easy job, we wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t like our job. So I think I can kind of speak for the CJA community, that we're going to plow through it, we're going to get our work done. Obviously, it doesn’t make us feel good, but we do have clients who need us to be there for them.”

“These attorneys will not be paid until October 1 for the work they have done and for the work that we continue to ask them to do, unless the Judiciary receives supplemental funding from Congress before then,” St. Eve said. 

There is concern the Oct. 1 deadline may come and go, and their paychecks may not be certain until April 2026, but an official deadline has not been announced.

While Ezquerro is going to hold on for as long as she can, other attorneys in other states have already had to back out of cases, delaying court dates for those behind bars.

“I don’t think I could look a client in the eye after I've already told them, 'hey, I'm here to help you,' and you build that rapport and trust and then tell them, 'I'm sorry I'm not getting paid, I'm just going to abandon you.'”