Combating an overwhelming caseload, Johnson County Contract Attorney Eric Tindal often works 16 to 18 hours a day.

The long weekdays often overflow into Saturdays and Sundays for Tindal, who works in approximately 20 different counties across Iowa.

“I might do a little bit less work during the weekend, but there’s not a day that I’m not doing emails or some kind of work on a typical day,” the criminal defense attorney said.

Tindal said on a recent Saturday he had to visit a client in the Lee County jail — a trip that takes five hours. Work trips are not unusual on the weekend for Tindal.

For three years in a row, Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice Susan Christensen has called for Iowa legislators in her annual “Condition of the Judiciary” speech to address issues with the indigent defense system in the state. The problem, however, stems back much farther than 2023.

According to the  Iowa State Bar Association, or ISBA, the number of contract attorneys — private attorneys who have a contract to take court-appointed, or indigent defense cases — decreased by almost 50 percent between 2014 and 2023.

In 2023, approximately 170 attorneys were employed by the Office of the State Public Defender, or OSPD, to represent poor and low-income individuals. Caseload far exceeds the capability of public defenders, according to the OSPD. The office identifies 561 contract attorneys.

Section 815.9 of the Iowa Code establishes an individual is deemed indigent if their income is at or below 125 percent of the U.S. poverty level, or $19,562 for a single person, unless the court determines they can pay for an attorney.

In her 2025 “Condition of the Judiciary” speech, Christensen said the majority of the approximately 87,000 serious criminal cases in fiscal 2024 were entitled to court-appointed counsel.

Christensen spoke about how the contract attorney shortage results in criminal defendants sitting in jail for long periods of time and not receiving a speedy trial, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment.

Countless lawyers are experiencing extreme burnout, Christensen said, but feel guilty leaving their work behind and, in effect, leaving clients defenseless and heightening the workload for other overworked contract attorneys.

“Contract attorneys are crucial to the system, yet they find themselves caught in a relentless tug of war — feeling undervalued because of low compensation while struggling against the pressure to keep going,” she said.

Overworked and underpaid

Iowa Rep. Brian Lohse, R-Bondurant, serves as the chair of the House Justice System Appropriations Subcommittee and has been advocating for a continued increase in pay since his first day in the state legislature.

Over the last two years, Lohse said he has been able to get the pay rate to increase by $8 an hour, from $78 to $86 per hour for Class A felonies. His goal, however, is to see the pay reach $100 an hour at the minimum by the time he retires.

The current pay rate for contract attorneys is $86 per hour for Class A felonies, $81 per hour for Class B felonies, and $76 per hour for all other types of cases, according to the Iowa Legislative Services Agency.

The Iowa Legislative Services Agency defines the different classes of felonies:

• Class A felonies are the most serious offense under Iowa law. Examples include sexual assault resulting in serious injury and first-degree murder.
• Class B felonies are one step below Class A felonies, with common examples being murder in the second degree and multiple acts of child endangerment.

Tindal said while pay rates may sound substantial, they are just barely enough for the average attorney.

“When you figure that the average law firm needs $75 an hour just to keep the doors open, $76 an hour just isn’t doing it, so increasing the hourly rate significantly is a must,” he said.

According to the American Bar Association, a lawyer should dedicate no more than 2,080 hours per year to defense work, nearly a quarter of the hours in a year. Tindal said his caseload easily calls for two or three times that amount.

“The average attorney doesn’t have that kind of understanding and support. I think that if we were brain surgeons or heart surgeons or something and we were like, ‘Hey, it’s Sunday, we got to go in and perform the surgery,’ families tend to understand,” he said. “But when you’re going to represent somebody charged with murder, they don’t really understand — at least not in the same sense.”

Melvin Shaw, president of the ISBA, wrote in his Feb. 3 President’s Letter the ISBA would once again be tackling the indigent defense shortage during the 2025 legislative session.

“Those rates fail to reflect the demanding nature of indigent defense work, which involves heavy caseloads, relentless time demands, and significant tolls on attorney well-being,” Shaw wrote. “This has led to widespread burnout and the attrition of contract attorneys statewide.”

In an interview with The Daily Iowan, Shaw shared the rate of pay has been an issue since the early 2000s. Even though the pay has increased gradually over time, Shaw said it’s still not enough.

“It’s not keeping up with the cost of actually doing the work,” Shaw said.

Access to justice

Jim Carney, member of the Iowa State Bar Association Legislative Counsel, a group of professionals dedicated to advocating for the legal profession in Iowa, said the state is fortunate to have lawyers who feel an obligation to take the cases.

Carney said many of the attorneys are young and take cases even if they make little money.

“They’re looking for an opportunity to get into the courtroom,” he said. “They’re looking for an opportunity to get experience and trial practice, so they’re willing to take those cases, even at a loss. But it is a constitutional right, and we have a crisis in Iowa, all over the state.”

Lohse said several of the attorneys taking on indigent defense work are fresh out of law school, which also causes problems for the justice system.

“We have a constitutional obligation to provide effective assistance, and sometimes younger attorneys take these cases, and they might not be fully qualified yet to take the case, but they have to because they’re the only ones,” he said. “So, there’s a multi-level aspect there that really causes constitutional problems.”

One of those constitutional problems includes cases getting dismissed and victims not receiving justice, he said.

Iowa Rep. Ken Croken, D-Davenport, and ranking member of the Justice System Appropriations Subcommittee, said in Scott County, the county he represents, there are several people sitting in jail who have not been granted the access to justice the Constitution promises.

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“There are many people, perhaps even the majority of people, who have not been convicted of a crime and will never be convicted of a crime, but their trials are so delayed, and our bail system is so punitive that people are serving time for crimes not committed because they can’t get into court to get a determination of justice,” Croken said.

Shaw said many lawyers are leaving Iowa for states like Illinois, where attorneys get paid a minimum of $150 per hour. As a result, Shaw said, justice is delayed.

According to the Iowa State Bar Association, in 2024, 56 counties in Iowa were legal deserts, defined as “a jurisdiction with less than one attorney per 1,000 population.” This is up from 2018, during which 42 counties were considered legal deserts.

“The person who’s been accused — their justice is delayed. Our courts are working efficiently to administer justice, but these are the real-world access to justice issues,” Shaw said. “If you can’t afford an attorney, you’re waiting, and we don’t want you to wait. That’s why we’re asking our Senate and our House for help.”

Croken said the issue is a compound of many problems that most severely impact defendants.

“Sadly, the problem at the bottom of it all is a popular belief and impression that everybody who’s been arrested and charged is guilty and therefore doesn’t deserve the justice that the Constitution promises to each of us,” Croken said.

Rural county struggle

Despite the shortage being a statewide struggle, rural counties struggle the most with only two to three contract attorneys in some counties.

Tindal said several rural counties near Johnson County are experiencing the shortage.

Citing Washington County as the strongest example, Tindal said when he practiced there 25 years ago, there were about 30 practicing attorneys. Today, there are around 10.

“You add that up in county after county, and you just see a precipitous drop in the number of attorneys, period,” Tindal said. “That shows up on the indigent defense side as well, because there’s fewer lawyers. Fewer lawyers means fewer attorneys taking those cases.”

According to the ISBA, 35 percent of Iowa’s population live in rural areas, but only 15 percent of the state’s attorney population represents those areas.

In addition to advocating for a pay raise, Lohse introduced House File 15, which aims to recruit rural attorneys by offering an equal incentive payment once per year for five years, each in an amount equal to University of Iowa Law School resident tuition and fees, effectively paying off most of their law school education.

“In small, rural counties, you can get inundated with the work, and it just isn’t enough at the current rate to really make a living and be able to provide additional services,” Lohse said.

Shaw spoke in favor of the bill, also advocating for an increase in the rural areas.

“[The bill] would allow attorneys to go into rural Iowa, where there may only be two or three attorneys,” he said. “It provides access to justice in counties where there is a dearth of representation by council.”

Croken has also expressed support for the bill but said he isn’t confident it will completely solve the problem, as there is still a shortage of lawyers.

“There are no lawyers, and they don’t want to live in rural communities,” Croken said. “I’m not sure if increasing their pay is going to make a difference — if it does, I’ll be delighted. It’s the best I can do, but I don’t think it’s good enough.”

On behalf of the ISBA Legislative Counsel, Carney and his other council members are working to lobby for changes, supporting Lohse’s goals for attorneys to get paid $100 per hour for Class A felony cases.

“We’ve had a tremendous loss of attorneys who will take these cases. There’s no doubt that it’s related to compensation,” Carney said. “We’re hoping that by raising the rates, we can level off the attrition and hopefully entice a lot of these lawyers who handle the cases to begin re-accepting them.”

Still, Tindal said being a criminal defense lawyer is the perfect job if someone wants their career to matter, encouraging young Iowans to consider a future in law.

“You should do it because you believe in our system of justice and that poor people should have access to justice, too,” he said. “And you should do it because you have a spirit that you want to win and succeed and help people along the way.”