San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harry Dorfman has signaled he is done waiting on the city’s attorney shortage to sort itself out. This week, he informed key justice-system leaders that he intends to order the Public Defender’s Office to stop refusing felony appointments and to start taking new felony cases again, unless there is a clear, specific conflict. The move follows months of tense hearings over crushing caseloads and thin staffing that have left some people appearing at arraignment without lawyers. Court staffers and defense leaders say the resulting backlog has jammed up the Hall of Justice and heavily burdened the private conflict panel that has been picking up overflow work.
Dorfman’s email and the order
In an email sent last Friday and reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle, Dorfman wrote that he had concluded Public Defender Mano Raju “does have available attorneys to accept felony cases” and said he plans to issue a directive starting Monday requiring the office to accept those appointments unless it formally declares a conflict. The message was circulated to leaders in the District Attorney’s Office, the San Francisco Bar Association and the Sheriff’s Office. For an arraignment judge, it is an unusually direct step after months of testimony and paperwork about how cases are assigned and what the office can realistically handle.
How defenders say the system broke
Raju’s team has repeatedly told the court that its lawyers are already at their ethical limit and that taking on more felony cases would risk inadequate representation. Testimony and filings presented in court describe a sharp climb in active caseloads since 2019 and highlight time-intensive digital evidence and expanded discovery obligations as major factors, according to the Davis Vanguard. Earlier this year, the office began declaring limited unavailability, sending many arraignment cases to contract lawyers and the conflict panel, which officials now describe as badly stretched.
Prosecutors and critics push back
Chief Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez has pressed Dorfman to reject the public defender’s broad claim of unavailability, arguing the office cannot simply refuse whole categories of felony appointments, a position laid out in letters and filings reviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle. Prosecutors say the Public Defender’s Office is legally obligated to represent indigent defendants in criminal cases except where a genuine conflict exists and have accused the office’s leadership of mismanaging resources. That clash has left judges trying to balance the constitutional right to counsel with the practical realities of how many cases local defense lawyers can actually cover.
Legal knots and short-term fixes
There is no straightforward legal tool to force private attorneys to accept court appointments for indigent clients, the Daily Journal reported, and judges have tread carefully on how far they can push. In the meantime, the court has floated a series of short-term workarounds, including asking supervising lawyers to cover arraignments, expanding the conflict panel and encouraging mediated solutions among the players. But defenders have warned that these band-aid fixes risk weakening supervision and client service, according to testimony described by the Davis Vanguard. Longer-term ideas on the table include a controller’s audit, emergency hiring and targeted funding to bolster both the Public Defender’s Office and the conflict panel.
Representatives from the Public Defender’s Office, the District Attorney’s Office and the Bar Association are expected to be in Dorfman’s courtroom Monday to hash out how additional cases will be assigned, Mission Local reported. If the court follows through with an order, managers, conflict-panel lawyers or contract defenders could be tapped to take on more arraignments, a stopgap that defenders say will further thin supervision. Those hearings, and any written directive from Dorfman, will show whether the city can keep the criminal docket moving while still protecting defendants’ right to effective counsel, all while broader staffing and funding fixes remain a work in progress…