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LEWISTON Law firm Brann & Isaacson added expertise to its practice with the naming of attorney Michael E. Carey to partner and the hiring of attorney William Townshend as an associate. The moves strengthen the firm’s offerings across multiple practice areas, including state and local tax, litigation and estate planning.
Michael E. Carey
As a partner, Carey’s practice will continue to focus on municipal law, the state and local taxation of information technology and telecommunications services, and civil litigation. He joined Brann & Isaacson in 2013 after serving four terms in the Maine House of Representatives, where his experience deepened his understanding of public sector finance and management.
Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services has opened registration for Criminal Law and Child Protection minimum standards training, to be held March 4-5, 2021. If you would like to attend these trainings, download and complete the Registration.
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The office that oversees legal services for Maine’s poor is asking for more employees to fix a myriad of financial and constitutional problems identified by watchdog groups.
The Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services has been under scrutiny as lawyers and legislators alike call for reform. A state agency published a report last year that concluded the commission has little organizational structure, lacks oversight and does not have established policies for attorney billing. The longtime executive director stepped down from his position in December. New leadership has started to make changes but told legislators Friday that more resources are necessary.
Governor Janet Mills is expected not to include money to open the state’s first public defender office, increase staff oversight of defense spending or raise wages for court-appointed attorneys in the next biennium budget, according to records released on Friday, Dec. 18.
A $35.4 million budget proposal by the Maine Commission on Indigent Legal Services, or MCILS, submitted in October outlined the first major investment in public defense since the agency opened in 2010. A meeting agenda released on Friday said MCILS was notified by the state budget office that its initiatives had not made it through the first round of review for the biennium budget.