Five county bar associations and New York City may soon settle their differences over a city plan to shift the bulk of an estimated 44,000 cases a year now handled by private, court-assigned counsel to institutional providers such as the Legal Aid Society.
Under a draft stipulation now being circulated, the bar organizations would abandon their state lawsuit challenging the plan. In exchange, the city would assure the bar groups that they would retain oversight responsibilities under a new indigent criminal defense plan to be negotiated by the two sides.
