You may already be a winner

The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts maintains a website that you can use to see if there is any unclaimed property that belongs to you.  The website is located at https://txcpa.cpa.state.tx.us/up/Search.jsp.

I didn’t think that I would have any unclaimed property since I am in the habit of claiming all of the property I can, but there it was… a telephone bill that I must have overpaid several years ago.

When I searched the names of about a half-dozen attorneys, I found unclaimed property for every single one of them!  The amounts varied from around $50 (for me) to over $500 for one Temple attorney.

After you click the box to claim the property, you’ll have to enter in some identifying information about yourself.  Then, the Comptroller’s office will mail you a claim form to sign and mail back to them.  That’s it.  Simple enough.

Tip: the search allows you to type in your first name, last name, and a city.  Start off by doing this, but then go back and just type in your first name and last name without filling in the city.  Scan those results and look for old addresses for places you might have lived at in the past.  Then, enter in any alternative spellings of your name that you have used.

So, do yourself a favor, and check to see if you’ve got a secret stash of cash which Susan Combs is guarding for you.  If you feel compelled to pay me a finders fee, I’m sure something can be worked out.

BCDLA meeting on October 24th at noon

As a reminder, please don’t forget about the next meeting of the Bell County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.  Our guest speaker will be Bell County jail administrator, Major Bob Patterson. He will discuss the new Bell County jail, the new jail procedures (you will not want to miss this), and anything else we want to know. He has said that the floor will be open to any and all questions about the jail and how it operates, and anything else jail related.

The meeting is scheduled for noon on Friday, October 24, 2008, at the Dead Fish Grill in Belton. The meeting ends when we’re done asking Maj. Patterson questions.

This is a great opportunity to learn how things work at the jail and how things will work at the new jail. It is also a chance for us to let the people in charge over there know what concerns us.

The meeting is two weeks away, so there is plenty of time to reschedule your jail pleas for that afternoon or plea those jail birds out early. You will not want to miss this meeting!

Everyone is invited, and strongly encouraged to be there. As criminal defense attorneys, we need to present a united front in these situations so that those in positions of power will understand that we are a force to be reckoned with. United we stand, divided we fall, folks. Please do not let your fellow defense attorneys down, we need each and every one of you there!

Ages of Disposed Cases

Using the Trial Court Judicial Data Management System, I have created yet another chart.  This one shows the number of felony cases that were finalized between October 2007 and October 2008 in each of the Texas counties listed, and then it shows how old each case was at the time it was disposed of:

About the only interesting thing that jumps out at me is the fact that Webb County takes just as long as Bell County does to resolve felony cases.  That’s interesting because Webb County has a pretty generous flat-fee rate for court appointed attorneys.  I would have thought that meant those court appointed attorneys would plead their cases out super fast (in order to maximize their profit on a flat fee case).  That doesn’t appear to be true, though.  I guess flat fees don’t promote a “plead ‘em quick” mentality.

Conviction Rates vs. Compensation Rates

The Texas Office of Court Administration collects statistical information on each court in Texas. Through the use of their online Trial Court Judicial Data Management System, anyone can look at some very interesting statistics concerning Texas courts.

Looking at other Texas counties that have about the same size populations as Bell County, we can see the following conviction rates for the last three years:

This chart contains data from October 1, 2005, to September 30, 2008.

Looking at the chart, you can quickly see that Bell County and Williamson County have the highest conviction rates. But what don’t you see? I don’t see a connection between court-appointed attorney rates and conviction rates. A recent post of mine shows the court appointed attorney hourly rates for these same counties. Looking at that chart and this one, I don’t see a connection.

For example, Jefferson County pays the lowest hourly fees, but they have the lowest conviction rate. Conversely, Webb County pays the highest hourly fees. and they have a slightly higher than average conviction rate.

Of course, Bell County has the highest conviction rate of Texas counties our size – and we are tied for second-to-lowest court appointed hourly rates. However, Galveston has the same hourly rate, and their conviction rate is as much lower than the average conviction rate as our county is higher (70% versus 95% , with an 82% state-wide average).

Bottom line, these numbers are interesting, but I’m not sure what conclusions we can draw from just looking at this limited data set. Looking at just these counties, over the last three years, there does not appear to be a correlation between conviction rates and court appointed attorney compensation rates.

Does anyone have any other ideas on what the cause of higher-than-average conviction rates?

Attorney Ratios: Comparing Bell County

After seeing how the four counties on either side of Bell County compare to us on court appointed attorney fees, I was curious if the pay rate has anything to do with attorney density.  So, I went to the State Bar of Texas, Department of Research and Analysis.  I bet a lot of you have never heard of this part of the State Bar, but you should have.  If you have a statistical question about Texas attorneys, they probably have the answer.

To get the number of attorneys in each of the four closest counties on either side of Bell County (population wise), I looked at the most recent data available in the State Bar’s Attorney Population Density by Metropolitan Statistical Area Report: 2005-06. That report shows that each county has the following number of attorneys:

The ratio shows you how many attorneys there are for each person in that county.  For example, in Bell County, there is only one attorney for every 993 persons in the county.  That’s the most favorable attorney-to-potential client ratio around for counties our size. 

Also, keep in mind, that not every attorney practices criminal defense law.  One of the few things that you cannot get from the State Bar is a percentage of attorneys that practice criminal law.  The closest thing that I could find was that about 3% of all Texas attorneys belong to the criminal justice section of the State Bar.  I imagine that there are many attorneys who aren’t members of the criminal justice section since the criminal justice section of the State Bar is such a joke right now. 

So, is there a connection between attorney density and court appointed attorney fees?  It appears there might be.  Look at Jefferson County.  They pay the worst, a flat $50 per hour.  However, they also have the most attorneys per population ratio for counties our size.  There are just too many attorneys there to justify paying more than what the market likely will bear there.  Also, Webb County appears to pay the best, and they have an attorney to population ratio about the same as Bell County.  There are anomalies, though.  Williamson County for example pays horribly compared to how many attorneys live in that county.  I would suspect they get a lot of Travis County attorneys; plus, keep in mind that they are being sued by the Task Force on Indigent Defense right now anyway.  So, maybe it’s not the greatest idea to look at Williamson County to see what we should be doing!

By the way, the State Bar has determined that the average hourly rate for retained criminal defense attorneys in Texas is $207.  The median amount is $175 per hour.

One would think that since Bell County has the fewest attorneys per resident of all counties our size that we’d be paid the highest court appointed attorney fees.  Any idea why we aren’t?