CPCS attorneys flag expansion strain in push for unionization rights

Attorneys at the Committee for Public Counsel Services are struggling under the weight of an expansion push and feel like management does not have their backs, they told lawmakers on March 16 at the State House.

“There is no voice in our upper management that is responsive to our constant, constant reminders that our clients are suffering, that our staff is overwhelmed, and that many of us are facing abuse in the courtroom,” Boston CPCS trial attorney Tanvi Verma said during a Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions hearing.

An initiative petition (H. 5009) before lawmakers would enable CPCS employees to unionize. It would not create a bargaining unit, but it would give employees the ability to pursue unionization through the same process to which other public employees have access, experts said. The committee has 864 employees, 425 of whom are attorneys, according to CPCS Chief Counsel Anthony J. Benedetti.

CPCS is implementing changes mandated by a 2025 law, Benedetti said, after bar advocate attorneys representing indigent clients demanded higher pay and stopped taking new cases. The Legislature agreed to a $20-an-hour raise over two years, and allocated $40 million to CPCS with the aim of hiring about 320 public defenders and reducing the state’s reliance on bar advocates.

“When CPCS hires all of these new attorneys and puts them in these offices and assigns them cases and brings them up to a full caseload, and in two or three years, they leave CPCS because it’s a miserable job, that they don’t feel adequately supported, and they feel like they’re not doing good work — those clients are going to then have to be represented by the attorneys who stay, who are then going to have larger caseloads,” Fall River CPCS trial attorney James Vita said. He and Verma spoke in favor of the initiative petition.

Most of the attorneys being brought on are recent law school graduates who do not have offices or share temporary work spaces, Verma said.

“Our office has attempted to advocate for ourselves to upper management many, many times, saying that our caseloads have exploded, that those of us with only a few years of experience are being asked to take dozens of new attorneys under our wing to support, in addition to the significant uptick in our workload,” Verma said. “You cannot even see the desks of some of our support staff because they’re buried under piles of new cases that they cannot keep up with.”

“We are constantly told one thing: that we need to do more,” Verma said.

The unionization question could go before voters in November if lawmakers choose to not address it. Hearing co-chair Rep. Michael Day said lawmakers had not received any written testimony opposing the proposal. They will be accepting testimony through March 20. No opponents nor members of the public orally testified on March 16.

There have been three occasions since 1979 when a union has sought to represent employees at CPCS or its predecessor, Department of Labor Relations Director Phil Roberts told lawmakers. Petitions were filed in 1979 and 1993, Roberts said, though both failed when CPCS and its predecessor were found not to be employed by a “statutorily-defined public employer,” and therefore did not possess collective bargaining rights.

If enacted, H. 5009 would define CPCS as a public employer, Roberts said.

The most recent petition was filed with the department in 2015, Labor Relations Special Counsel Marjorie Wittner said, when a union argued that CPCS employees were entitled to collective bargaining rights under the collective bargaining law that applies to employees of certain private sector employees. The Commonwealth Employment Relations Board dismissed the petition based on the fact that CPCS is a public entity, she added.

“While this proposal has not generated a public opposition in the Legislature, it has not yet moved forward,” SEIU Local 888 President Tom McKeever said. “Without a direct dialogue with all stakeholders, we can only assume that there are unresolved concerns about implementation within the CPCS structure. We believe that this is solvable.”

Asked about past or potential opposition to the issue, Day listed a few.

“What the ethical obligation is for an attorney versus what their role is as a member of the union, is certainly one with public defenders that’s very acute, given their job is representing these individuals,” Day said. “I think some of the structure of what a unit would look like, whether you’re a staff being supervised, whether you’re an attorney actually supervising. Were those appropriate for one unit, or whether they have to be broken under many. And those are some of the answers that we’re trying to get at with with this hearing itself.”

Benedetti said that the issues identified in earlier discussions “reflect the practical question of how statutory duties relating to matters such as caseload standards, hiring practices, compensation structures in the organization of the staff would operate alongside a collective bargaining framework.” While compensation is often a big part of the conversation, attorneys and staff could seek representation in other proceedings like discrimination matters. Benedetti spoke on behalf of the committee that oversees CPCS, which is not taking a stance on the proposal.

Sen. Paul Feeney called it “a simple proposal,” and said the committee “is further trying to understand the details of what that would mean.”

Rep. Kate Hogan asked McKeever why CPCS employees should be granted bargaining rights through a ballot initiative, rather than through the normal legislative process.

“This is our fifth or sixth legislative cycle advocating on behalf of CPCS,” McKeever said. “Our original strategy was to present it to the House side, and we constantly and consistently came up short. This leg cycle, we traveled through the Senate. We had all 40 senators view our ballot initiative as reasonable, essentially co-sponsors, on behalf of this filed legislation.”

Senate legislation on the topic (S. 1843) cleared the Senate side of the Joint Public Service Committee in November and is pending before the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

McKeever said that SEIU Local 888 and the National Association of Government Employees would oversee the unionization process and bargaining framework. NAGE already provides representation for attorneys in the state, he added.

“It’s not as though I think that there can be some miracle that fixes everything,” Verma told Day, when asked about the connection between advocates feeling disrespected in the courtroom and their push for unionization. “It’s more about the fact that we’re asking to be heard and being stonewalled.”

Boston Sen. Nick Collins was sitting in the hearing room on March 16, and proponents referred to his support during their testimony. In written testimony shared with the News Service, Collins wrote to committee chairs that, “As we saw last year, the lack of representation of CPCS attorneys and staff led to a breakdown in negotiations as we were debating the FY2026 state budget.”

Enabling CPCS staff to collectively bargain “would ensure adequate staffing levels and working conditions, leading to a more stable judicial system,” Collins added.