"If you're getting paid a couple of hundred of thousand of dollars a year or whatever," he says, "wouldn't you at least show up somewhere to see your clients ahead of time? I'm talking about the most rudimentary principles of honest lawyering. Where is the conscience of these people?"
McEachern bristles at Kennedy's remarks, telling New Times, "The term 'meet-and-greet' sounds terrible, but it's reality, the nature of the game sometimes, such as when a client decides to show up for court for the first time halfway through a case."
Fred Harper
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Surprisingly, McEachern says, "I don't have to speak to every person face to face to understand their story. I am a history person, and I do appellate work, and I understand how to read cold copy and get something from it. Some of these kids have everyone constantly in their face — therapists, teachers, caseworkers — and they lose track of which one's which.
"It's not the lawyer who should be going out and visiting the clients. It should be that lawyer's social worker, if she has one, which I do. I'm not a psychologist, I'm a lawyer, and I know which cases need my priorities."
McEachern says it's not unusual for her clients (the ones who aren't behind bars) to skip appointments with her, fail to return her phone calls, miss court hearings and make a healthy attorney-client relationship impossible.
Fair enough.
But Mark Kennedy says the county has added provisions to new juvenile contracts going into effect July 1 that will compel private attorneys to avow in writing that they have visited with clients beforegoing to court.
"Some of the lawyers in the dependency bar do excellent, conscientious work," he says. "But others just go through the motions, just try to move their cases through by going along with whatever CPS tells the judge — kind of hydroplaning through hearing after hearing. I say you owe it to your client to at least get to know what they are about before you get to court. Some of our attorneys literally don't have the time to do that."
But Ronald Reinstein, another judge on the dependency beat in downtown Phoenix, says of the lawyers who appear in his court, "All I ask is of them is to be prepared, to know what their case is about and to represent their clients to the best of their abilities, and that's what I get most of the time."
Reinstein speaks well of the work performed by many dependency attorneys who regularly appear before him, such as Christine Mulleneaux (who was paid $220,890 in 2006), Christopher Theut ($124,736), the husband and wife team of Dan and Pamela Wiens Saint ($298,600 between the couple) and others.
One of the most respected members of the county judiciary, Reinstein adds a cautionary note: "The numbers of cases that some of these attorneys apparently have been juggling is really troubling. I can't imagine that it's healthy for anyone involved."
What it has been is healthy for many of their bank accounts.
Reinstein says another court official familiar with the situation recently suggested, apparently only somewhat in jest, that the judge should apply for a county contract when he retires in a few months because that's where the money has been.
Reinstein says (wry smile in place) he isn't leaning in that direction yet.
Mark Kennedy says he's confident that other changes in the upcoming juvenile contracts, including a limit on cases (a maximum of 260 per attorney), some reduction of pay for the dependency attorneys and other cost-cutting measures will have an immediate and positive effect.
Needless to say, the dependency bar is none too pleased by the upcoming changes.
"I think what happened is that people at the Board of Supervisors and in Mark Kennedy's office just got together as a tribal group and decided to vote us off the island," says Janelle McEachern. "They think we're spoiled little brats, and they're giving us a big spanking."
Says Kennedy, "No doubt there will be growing pains as we step into what I think is going to be a seismic change in how we do business with these lawyers. But something's got to give, period, and we're taking steps to make sure it does."
Not counting Patricia O'Connor, 37 private lawyers specializing in juvenile cases were paid more than $100,000 last year by Maricopa County.
Seven juvenile dependency attorneys, including O'Connor, collected more than $200,000 in 2006. Right behind O'Connor were Janelle McEachern and Jeffrey Zurbriggen, who were paid $277,992 and $266,925, respectively.
The county's Peter Ozanne, who was executive director of the Office of Public Defense Services in Portland, Oregon, before moving to Phoenix last October, says the financial situation for dependency attorneys in Oregon is vastly different than it is here.
The money that Maricopa County's dependency attorneys have been making, compared with others in the system, apparently has been giving even some of them pause.
"It is skewed," Janelle McEachern says, "and if I was a death penalty attorney or a judge, I'd say, 'Wait a minute' too. They have families to support and offices to run. But I'm not the one who disperses the money. I don't know, maybe all of the other parts of the system should lobby to get more money."
