Massachusetts High Court Declines to Hike Pay for Bar Advocates

State judges can’t boost pay rates for private attorneys representing indigent defendants to address counsel shortages that left hundreds without legal help, Massachusetts’s high court said Monday.

In a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Judicial Court declined to intervene in the legislature’s domain and increase the $65-an-hour that bar advocates in May 2025 said had led to a thinning out of their ranks. The shortage meant almost 800 poor defendants had no representation in Boston’s Suffolk County and nearby Middlesex County, where they are in most need, the advocates said.

The ruling cements the principle that the ...