ALBANY – In its marathon budget-passing session earlier this month, the state Legislature quietly voted to increase some court fees and to tentatively earmark that funding for cultural education – not assigned counsel rates, as some had proposed.

The provision caught lawyers, and even some top-ranking lawmakers, off-guard and has prompted a grass roots and probably quixotic lobbying effort to persuade Governor George E. Pataki to reject a provision he himself inserted in the budget.