Cover Story

By Rob Holbert Managing Editor

By all accounts, Habib Yazdi is a hard worker. According to judges and lawyers alike working in the Mobile Bar, he is routinely at the courthouse by 7 a.m. and meets with a mind-boggling number of clients on a routine basis. His peers say things like “Habib is everywhere,” or “It’s like he has seven twin brothers.”

When you handle over 400 indigent criminal defenses a year – nearly twice as many as any other lawyer in town – people are bound to notice.

Most places in Alabama, including Mobile, do not have a public defender’s office. That means lawyers like Yazdi are relied upon to represent the indigent, those who can’t possibly afford an attorney to help get them a better deal on a third burglary arrest, cop a plea or maybe even help them beat the rap on a crime they didn’t commit. For the vast majority of the roughly 200 attorneys who did indigent defense work in the Mobile Circuit over the last year, such work is unlikely to put much food on the table. But for a few who are chosen again and again to represent the poor, there is considerable money to be made.

For instance, during the period from May 1, 2006 to April 30, 2007, Yazdi was paid $174,339 for indigent defense work and overhead, according to records provided by the Alabama Department of Finance, which cuts checks for indigent defense payments. With 445 cases assigned to him during that time, Yazdi is the undisputed king of indigent defense work in the Mobile Circuit and is paid well as such. While others don’t bring in nearly as much as Yazdi, there are some who make out pretty well in public defense.

Not so many years ago, though, making that kind of money representing poor criminal defendants in Alabama would have been impossible. Before the Legislature set payments at $60 per hour for in-court time, $40 per hour for out-of-court time and $25 per hour for overhead, it was slim pickings for a judge trying to find lawyers to do indigent defense. That has changed. A decade ago, one local judge said, he might have had 15 people on his list of attorneys desirous of such work. Now his list is well over 100.

Those in the local bar association who were willing to speak on the record about the indigent defense appointments were few. Several who spoke on condition of anonymity said the work has become more sought after for several reasons. Number one, of course, is the money is better. Secondly, changes in state laws have made it tougher for attorneys to make ends meet in civil work. And finally, there’s an ever-expanding number of lawyers, and doing indigent work is a good way to get a legal career off the ground.

But if many attorneys see defense appointments as a way to help supplement an income, it seems just as many are sometimes upset by a system that seems to give most of the work – and money – to a handful of attorneys. The way Alabama’s system has evolved, judges are the sole determiners of who gets assigned what cases, and it appears many judges find a comfort zone with a few favorite attorneys who end up with most of the cases and the money.

Picking and choosing

Among those attorneys complaining about the way cases are assigned, some seemed to feel good old-fashioned favoritism played a large role. Others complained that those who are willing to get down to the courthouse at 7 a.m. to put their names on the list first and who are always present in court get the cases. Some feel that sort of thing is undignified for attorneys, while others begrudgingly admit those drawing the most assignments are just out-hustling the rest of the field.

Lee Hale, Jr., who ranked number two in money earned with almost $113,000 during the period examined, says it’s a combination of things that make an attorney successful in getting lots of indigent appointments. Hale believes it is a mix of work ethic, legal know-how and developing rapport with a judge.

“I think where it comes from is the judges are very concerned about the people in jail getting quality representation,” Hale said. “The judges all eat lunch together and they compare notes about certain lawyers. And they get information from various people, including the clients and other court personnel.”

Hale said being in court and around the courthouse are extremely important in getting appointments, as the judges generally pick from those who are present. And while it may seem certain judges are picking certain lawyers all the time, Hale says the choice is as much the attorney’s.

“All the judges start out at about 8:30. You’ve got to choose where you go,” Hale said.

He says the judges know “there are guys they can call on at all times.”

But the questions still arise as to why certain judges will select a particular lawyer far more than any others. In Hale’s case, for instance, during the year examined, he was assigned 206 cases, according to records from the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts. According to those same records, 64 of those cases (31 percent) were assigned by Circuit Judge Charles Graddick. Conversely, Graddick assigned 23.1 percent of all his indigent defense cases in that period to Hale.

Hale dismissed the notion that his success in getting appointments from Graddick is due to any type of family connection – his father Lee L. Hale and Graddick have worked together in the past. Hale contended that Graddick and other judges who appoint him know his passion for the work. Hale says he even spends Sunday mornings seeing inmates, and feels it is almost something of a ministry for him.

“All I do is work,” Hale said.

He also dismissed questions of whether an attorney so dependent upon one judge giving him appointments might not be as aggressive in that jurist’s courtroom, or whether he or she would just be willing to help the judge clear his docket.

“What people don’t understand is I don’t go over to the jail and say ‘Please take this offer.’ I go over and say ‘Let’s got to trial.’ I’m appointed to defend your rights. Most people don’t like appointed lawyers. I will tell them to take this piece of paper – the offer (a plea deal) – from my hand,” Hale said excitedly.

Hale said the driving force behind his desire to take appointments has never been financial – he says he’s had better offers. Litigating criminal defense has given him an opportunity to improve his abilities and to “showcase” himself. As a result, he said, only about 30 percent of his work is appointed now, whereas two years ago, it made up 80 percent of his business.

“You don’t want to do appointments forever,” Hale said.

The appointments king

While Hale may be looking at doing more private defense work, Habib Yazdi doesn’t seem to be slowing down. And clearly, whatever judges are looking for in a lawyer to appoint, Yazdi has it in spades. Of the 14 judges examined in Mobile Circuit or District Courts, Yazdi had either the highest or second highest number of appointments from nine jurists. His total of 445 total assignments far outstrips the second place number of 267 by Joseph Altadonna. In fact, Yazdi accounted for 7.5 percent of the total cases assigned in that year’s time. Not bad for a guy who, according to his profile on the Alabama Bar Association Web site, attended the University of West Los Angeles Law School, an institution not approved by the American Bar Association.

Yazdi did not return multiple requests for an interview, so it is hard to explain why he has been so effective in landing indigent defense appointments. Certainly among his peers who spoke with Lagniappe, there is a reverence for Yazdi’s work ethic and willingness to take on almost anything. He even defended convicted serial killer Jeremy Jones.

His billing numbers are jaw-dropping, breaking down to a work week most people would find difficult to sustain. Dividing Yazdi’s in-court payments of $48,330 by $60 per hour, means he billed for 805.5 hours of in-court time during the year examined. His out-of-court payments of $94,452, divided by the hourly fee of $40, broke down to 2,361.3 hours, for a grand total of 3,166.8 hours billed that year. Divided by 50 weeks, that would mean Yazdi billed 63.3 hours a week on average during that period.

As the system is set up, judges must review and approve an attorney’s billed hours and overhead for each case before it is sent up to Montgomery for payment.

Judges’ picks

In examining each of the District and Circuit Court indigent assignments, it seemed the District Court judges spread their appointments out over a larger number of attorneys. Though the caseloads for District Court are much heavier than in Circuit, one judge explained it is more likely that young or inexperienced attorneys can handle the often less serious crimes tried in District Court. For instance, the highest percentage of appointments for an attorney from one District Court judge was 8.5 percent for Steve Dugan, who got 75 appointments from Judge Michael McMaken.

Averages were higher in Circuit Court, where the lowest percentage of assignments to one lawyer was from Judge James Wood, who assigned Yazdi 8.7 percent of his indigent cases. Most of the other circuit judges fell around 10 to 13 percent to their top lawyer. Judge Herman Thomas assigned 17 percent of his indigent cases – a total of 57 – to Jason Darley, and Judge Rosemary Chambers, who handles family law, had the highest percentage to one attorney, with 46 percent of her indigent cases going to Deborah McGowin.

Graddick’s assignment of 64 cases to Hale was the highest number of cases. At 23 percent of his indigent cases, it was the second highest, as well. Graddick’s office was contacted multiple times for this story, but his secretary said he would have no comment and directed further questions to the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts.

Too much influence?

AOC’s Director of Research and Planning, Mike Carroll, said there has never been a directive issued to judges setting out a way indigent defense cases should be assigned. He said the decisions are left to individual judges, and that by and large, there have been few complaints about the way the system works. Occasionally, he said, there are billing issues that must be dealt with.

“There have been problems with claims indigent attorneys have submitted,” Carroll said. “Sometimes when those are double checked, you see attorneys have billed the same hours to two different cases.”

When asked about Yazdi’s massive caseload and large amount of billed hours, Carroll said it is something that might bear a closer look.

“Anything is possible,” Carroll said. “Those are the comptroller’s records. I think that is something they should look at to ascertain whether someone is indeed working 63 hours a week.”

As for the relationships between judges and the attorneys they are assigning cases, Carroll said AOC is always concerned with how things are perceived. He cited the Alabama Canons of Judicial Ethics and its admonition that a judge “should not lend the prestige of his office to advance the private interests of others.” Cannon 3 B also cautions, in part, that a judge should use “his power of appointment only on the basis of merit, avoiding nepotism and favoritism. He should not approve compensation of appointees beyond the fair values of services rendered.”

Carroll said it clearly can be a subjective complaint if people feel a certain attorney gets preferential treatment from a judge. He said if AOC looked at such a complaint and saw numbers that appeared to back up the claim, even to the point that things just looked strange, it might be enough to have either have the presiding judge of a circuit talk to the judge in question. Graddick is presiding judge in the Mobile Circuit.

If the judge in question were the presiding judge, Carroll said, then he or she might receive a call from AOC. Carroll said the high numbers of appointments going to specific attorneys in Mobile might indeed “bear a look.”

“We might ask, for some reason do you have cases this person is considered a specialist in? Tell me why this is, I’m listening,” Carroll said.

One District Court judge, who asked not to be named, said the bottom line concerning the appointments is whether the accused are getting excellent representation. For him, it is important to be fair to the attorneys who want the work, but more important to make sure those charged with crimes have the best lawyer possible. He said it would make him less likely to give someone appointments if he felt that attorney was holding back out of fear of angering a judge who gives him lots of work.

Hale echoed that sentiment, saying he most fears a judge not thinking he is doing his best. Still, he admits there is a bit of an employer-employee relationship and that some judges are apt to be protective of their favorites.

“When a judge calls your name, they want you there,” Hale explained. “If you tell them, ‘I was in Judge Lockett’s courtroom, that’s why I wasn’t here,’ they will look you in the eye and say, ‘Oh, so you like Judge Lockett more than me.’”

Rob Holbert is Lagniappe managing editor. Contact him at rholbert@lagniappemobile.com.

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