Washington Public Defence Funding Dispute Threatens State Appeals System

Washington’s only non-profit appellate public defence law firm may be forced to close by the end of the year if a contract dispute with the state Office of Public Defence (OPD) is not resolved, potentially throwing hundreds of active appeals into jeopardy and deepening what observers already describe as a crisis in the state’s public defence system.

The Washington Appellate Project (WAP), founded in 1993, has historically handled around 40% of public defence appeals in the state — that is, appeals brought by clients who cannot afford to pay their own attorneys. Its contract with OPD expired at the end of June 2026, and the two sides have been unable to agree on a new agreement, leading to a lawsuit.

The dispute centres on how cases are weighted for compensation purposes, and what obligations attorneys have to their clients under the proposed new contract terms.

Key facts

The case-weighting dispute

WAP’s executive director, Greg Link, told The Urbanist that the disagreement is not about the number of cases per attorney but about how each case is weighted to determine the hours that can be billed. Under OPD’s new contracts, case weight is calculated by counting both transcript pages and clerks’ pages, with one credit now equalling 1,000 pages. Previously, only transcript pages were counted, with one credit equalling 800 pages.

“There’s no way to tell if a case will be straightforward or all-consuming,” said Austin Field, elections chair for the public defence chapter of SEIU 925, the union representing many public defenders.

The new contracts include provisions for extraordinary compensation on a case-by-case basis for outliers that require more work. But Link said OPD had not been regulating the type of cases it sent to WAP, creating capacity problems for the firm.

OPD’s deputy director for operations, Katrin Johnson, said the new contracts include language allowing OPD greater flexibility to reassign a case mid-year if a contractor lacks capacity. “What’s new was that language about making adjustments, if mid-year, it’s clear that the contractor lacks capacity,” Johnson told The Urbanist.

Ethical concerns and systemic impact

Link emphasised that the dispute goes beyond contract numbers. “The dispute is about how public defence for people on appeal is going to be delivered,” he said. “It’s about some of the terms in the contract that create an incentive for attorneys to really minimise the work on any given case in order to make the maximum amount of money — the sort of things that we really don’t want in public defence.”

Six law professors who teach legal ethics in Washington State wrote a letter supporting WAP’s position. The Washington Defender Association has also backed the firm.

WAP’s attorneys have argued landmark cases that affected large numbers of people. In State v. Blake (2021), the Washington Supreme Court found the law criminalising drug possession unconstitutional. In State v. Gregory (2018), the court found the death penalty unconstitutional because it was applied in an arbitrary and racially biased manner. WAP also argued a case that became part of the Miller fix, reforming how people who committed crimes as juveniles are sentenced and given a chance at parole.

“When you make the systemic changes, and I think Blake is a great example of this, it didn’t just affect our client, Miss Blake,” Link said. “It affected literally hundreds of thousands of people who would never be our client or never could have been our client.”

What happens next

Without additional funding, WAP says it will have to close its doors by the end of the year. Its remaining clients would then be left without attorneys mid-case. OPD has not publicly stated how it would reassign those cases, or whether other contracted firms have capacity to absorb the workload.

The two sides failed to reach a resolution through mediation, and in early September 2026, certain claims of the lawsuit were dismissed while others continue. The remaining lawsuit centres on WAP seeking adequate funding to continue representing nearly 500 people.

Washington’s public defence system was already considered to be in crisis before this dispute. An additional backlog created by WAP’s closure could worsen an already difficult situation for defendants, courts and the attorneys who remain.

OPD’s Johnson said the agency is meeting the new caseload standards for public defence issued by the state Supreme Court, and that other law firms with whom OPD contracts are able to make the new contracts work.

Source: The Urbanist, “Unfathomable Disaster Looms Following Public Defender Pay Dispute”, 15 October 2026. https://www.theurbanist.org/unfathomable-disaster-looms-following-public-defender-pay-dispute/