Although it is often regarded as a fundamental component of their profession, a significant number of lawyers in Philadelphia are failing to appear for their client cases. In fact, recent data suggests that lawyers from this city are less reliable than defendants when it comes to showing up in court. Drawn from a 10-year span study of criminal cases, it was found that private or court-appointed private lawyers failed to appear in court at least once in close to 36% of their cases. This data is revealed in “Systemic Failure to Appear in Court,” an article published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review.
One might expect high absentee rates from public defenders who are notoriously inundated with cases. Indeed, some reports have argued that they literally don’t have enough time to handle their workloads. However, the aforementioned rate is specific to private lawyers. What’s more, the data suggests court attendance issues are not isolated to the legal sector alone.
Missing appearances in court also extends to essential police officers, civilian witnesses, and various other attendees. A prominent figure failed to attend at least one hearing in 53% of all cases. Meanwhile, defendants missed their court dates in only 19% of cases. In cases where they were subpoenaed, police officers failed to show up 31% of the time. Victims failed to appear at least once in 47% of their cases, and other civilian witnesses had a similar failure rate of 46%. The failure-to-appear rate was found to be an alarming 70% in domestic violence cases.
It’s estimated that these no-shows by police officers and civilian witnesses have led to dropped charges in approximately 32,000 cases during the decade of the study in Philadelphia. While these statistics paint a bleak picture, emphasizing punctuality could be a starting point to address these systemic issues.
Further information on the study can be found in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review as well as in the ABA Journal report titled “Private Criminal Defense Lawyers Failed To Show Up For Their Cases More Often Than Defendants, Philly Study Finds.”