Attorney Can’t Sue Assigned Counsel Program

The New York Court of Appeals has held that an attorney who participates in an assigned counsel program (“ACP”) for indigent persons “lacks standing to challenge how the ACP Plan deals with the provision of counsel to unemancipated minors in adult criminal court…”

The attorney was never a minor charged with a crime or the parent of a charged minor.

The court noted that the attorney contended that sections of the Plan “caused him to be assigned fewer cases. But personal disagreement and speculative financial loss are insufficient to confer standing.” (Mike Frisch)