- “The bottom line is we are not clearing cases.” – Julie Traun
SAN FRANCISCO – The crisis over San Francisco’s overwhelmed public defense system intensified Monday as the court held its seventh hearing before Judge Dorfman to address the ongoing “unavailability” of the Public Defender’s Office.
Testifying was Julie Traun, who heads the city’s conflict counsel panel—a group of private attorneys appointed to take cases when the Public Defender has a conflict of interest or cannot take additional clients.
Traun described a system buckling under the weight of an unprecedented surge in cases, a situation she said has worsened since the Public Defender’s Office began filing declarations of unavailability earlier this year.
According to Traun, the conflict panel handled 2,186 cases during the 2023–24 fiscal year, but that number has ballooned in 2024–25. Based on current trends, she estimated the total will reach approximately 2,996 cases, marking a 40 percent increase, even though felony filings in San Francisco have risen by only about six percent.
“We are not settling cases, not clearing them,” she told the court, emphasizing that the courts’ own Chart 1B, which tracks monthly clearance rates, shows a persistent and deepening backlog.
Traun said her panel’s caseload began rising sharply in 2023–24, and by early 2025, it was clear the system was running out of available attorneys.
“We knew we didn’t have enough panel attorneys to cover,” she said. “We’ve recruited as fast as possible, but we still haven’t met the need.”
Twelve new felony attorneys have recently been brought on, but Traun said she doesn’t yet consider them full members of the panel.
“They’re not fully ready, but they’re taking unavailable cases,” she said, describing a constant struggle to find anyone who can take on the overflow. “This is what we are doing all the time now—finding attorneys to cover. This is not our normal job, but it has become a full-time part since May.”
Traun explained that the Public Defender’s declaration of unavailability has forced her team to absorb a dramatically larger share of cases.
“We know our job is to take conflicts,” she said, “but our priorities are conflicts, not overflow from unavailability.”
She expressed concern that the number of declared conflicts has skyrocketed, noting that the data show a disproportionate jump in cases being diverted to her panel.
“There’s a looseness in what’s being called a conflict,” she warned, offering an anecdotal example of a case she believed should not have been deemed one.
Still, she acknowledged that the system itself is on the verge of collapse.
“The bottom line is we are not clearing cases,” she said. “We are not resolving them.”
Her remarks reinforced what Assistant Chief Attorney Hadi Razzaq of the Public Defender’s Office told the court last week. Razzaq testified that the real issue is not the number of new filings but the backlog of unresolved cases.
“The problem is not the increase in filings,” he said at the time. “It’s the number of open cases we can’t resolve.”
Razzaq outlined how arrests and prosecutions have risen sharply as city leadership has pursued tougher policies on crime, while the complexity of cases—particularly those involving mental health and housing instability—has grown.
Despite historic staffing levels, he said, the Public Defender’s Office cannot ethically accept additional clients without jeopardizing its existing cases.
Deputy Public Defender Sujung Kim also testified that the declaration of unavailability is not optional but a legal and ethical requirement. She explained that under state law and professional conduct rules, defense attorneys must decline new cases when their workloads make it impossible to provide effective representation.
“It’s a constitutional issue,” she said. “If we take more cases than we can handle, we violate the rights of the people we represent.”
Traun, however, suggested that the crisis runs deeper than staffing or filings alone. She told Judge Dorfman that since the COVID-19 pandemic, the city’s justice partners—including the courts, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Public Defender’s Office—have not convened regular meetings to coordinate solutions.
“We have not met as justice partners since COVID,” she said, suggesting that the breakdown in communication may have been worsened by the Public Defender’s speedy trial lawsuit against the court.
She also pointed to rising tension and “vitriol” between the District Attorney and Public Defender’s offices, saying the lack of collaboration is compounding systemic strain. “We’ve seen more hostility,” she said, “and that makes it harder to solve problems collectively.”
In addition, Traun highlighted significant demographic shifts among clients, with a noticeable rise in people experiencing homelessness and mental illness. “We’re seeing more unhoused people, more mental health crises,” she said, stressing that these cases take more time and resources to resolve.
Traun linked the worsening situation to broader policy choices in San Francisco, criticizing Mayor Daniel Laurie’s “tough-on-crime” approach. She warned that the strategy of ramping up arrests and prosecutions without addressing systemic capacity is only making things worse. “The problem is not going to be resolved by locking people up short-term,” she said.
By her count, the number of unavailability declarations has quadrupled since October 6, and the system, she said, “has hit a wall.”
Judge Dorfman acknowledged the growing crisis but admitted there may be no easy fix. “I don’t know the answer,” he told the courtroom.
For now, both the Public Defender’s Office and the conflict panel are stretched to their limits, and as Traun made clear, the consequences are not abstract.
“We are not clearing cases,” she repeated, “and that means justice is not being served.”
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