So the rumor was true

I'd heard around the courthouse that an Inverness firm consisting of a total of three attorneys had been given the responsibility to cover ALL of the criminal conflict cases and dependency cases in three (count 'em) counties.

The article excerpted below seems to confirm that.

What the article does not mention is the amount of money that the firm will get for this enormous multi-county burden. Since everything else I'd heard is confirmed by this article, I'm more comfortable repeating the scuttlebutt (if it is wrong and Mr. Deen wishes to correct this blog in that respect, I'm still happy to hear from him): sources say that the amount of the contract is a total of $75,000, which might help to explain this line from the article:

The two lawyers will continue their current private practice, representing criminal and civil clients.

This continues the trend noted in an earlier post in which at least one of the Regional Counsels seems to be building his organization around private attorneys who accept these duties as being a part-time commitment. In fairness, the legislation that established the Regional/Conflict Counsel offices require that such attorneys give "first priority" to criminal conflict and dependency cases, but those are just words when compared to the reality that these jobs cannot possibly be part-time in any sense, and that the compensation is unlikely to keep any lawyers or firms doing it for very long.

Here's that excerpt I promised, then some more comments:

An Inverness law firm has been selected to represent indigent criminal defendants in cases where the public defender has a conflict of interest and indigent parents in dependency proceedings.

The firm of Grant & Samargya LLC is part of a regional criminal conflict and civil counsel office that will represent eligible clients in Citrus, Sumter and Hernando counties beginning Nov. 1....

Grant and Samargya have hired a third attorney, James R. Dozier, to assist them with the increasing caseload that will likely result from their new responsibilities...

Grant said he doubts the new agency will save on costs, but he believes it will provide central supervision for the conflict process by assigning lawyers from state run offices to handle the cases.

"I don't think it's going to save them money as much as it will streamline due process and make it subject to a central boss," he said...

Samargya said the law firm also will be busy with cases involving indigent parents in dependency and loss of parental rights cases. The firm will handle all dependency cases involving indigent parents. Those cases were formerly assigned to private attorneys.

I am not sure what Mr. Grant meant by streamlining due process. In fact I am sure that I have no idea at all what that means. I'll email him and ask. Perhaps he was misquoted.