Meeting Public Comments

Patrick Streit

I want to submit my support for several proposed bills submitted to the Committee. I had wrote to my representative, David Blom earlier and my comments are copied below. Specifically, I am writing about my support for House Files 15, 16, 30, and 37. House File 15 creates a recruitment assistance program for rural attorneys. Iowa is in great need of attorneys in general. Especially rural attorneys. I believe it would be a great benefit for all Iowans to have more attorneys be recruited to work in the great State of Iowa. This program would be a great incentive for rural counties and municipalities to provide more competitive wages for hiring attorneys. Such recruitment would also benefit Iowans due to more manageable caseloads for attorneys and the ability to actually have an attorney for their county or municipality. For example, Tom Hillers was the city attorney for several cities in Marshall County, including Liscomb and Whitten. This work was secondary to his practice. Due to his workload, and many attorneys like him, each city had to share him. I believe Hillers did competent work. His work was so impressive, that he was appointed to be Magistrate. But the work may have been improved if it was spread across more attorneys, instead of one attorney in each county who takes the majority of city attorney work. I have since taken the position as city attorney for Whitten and interviewed for Liscomb. But I know several cities which are unrepresented because their city attorney, like Hillers, was appointed to the bench. Iowa needs more rural attorneys and this bill is one step to correct that issue. House File 16 is for attorneys who accept indigent defense. I will explain some more below, but there are many cost barriers to working as an indigent defense attorney. One such cost is the risk and expense of litigating ineffective assistance of counsel claims from former clients. This bill will provided attorneys assistance from the State in defending these claims. This will lower the overall costs for all current indigent defense attorneys. As well as lower costs for attorneys considering indigent defense. If just one attorney begins to take indigent defense cases due to this bill, I would consider it a success. House File 30 creates a deduction from income tax for income derived from indigent representation for law firms. The highest barrier to indigent representation is salary. I personally charge $180 an hour and if I did public defender work, I would receive about $80 an hour. I asked to take on public defense cases and was denied by my firm. I would be losing money if I took a public defense case over another private case. This bill would allow firms to deduct part of that difference from their income taxes. In my case, I believe my firm could deduct about $70 for each hour I do for indigent representation. Its not a perfect fix. But it would incentivize more firms to take on indigent representation. This would be a tremendous help for all Iowans if successful. House File 37 uncaps the salary limit on county attorneys in certain counties. As already expressed, Iowa has a shortage of attorneys. This bill allows certain counties to set a higher salary for their county attorneys. This will help recruit more attorneys to Iowa. As a budding defense attorney, I am not a fan of county attorneys. But I know Iowa needs more attorneys on both sides of the criminal process. This bill would allow counties to offer more competitive salaries to recruit much needed attorneys.