Attorney Workforce Trends
According to the Kansas Supreme Court’s Rural Justice Initiative Committee Report, there were 11,179 active attorneys in Kansas in 2023. Of those attorneys, only 70.2 percent (or 7,843 attorneys) resided in the state of Kansas. This correlates with the 2024 Profile of the Legal Profession by the American Bar Association, which states that the number of active resident attorneys in Kansas decreased by approximately 5.0 percent from 2014 through 2024, for a total of 7,845 licensed resident attorneys.
Notably, Kansas had a lower attorney rate than the national average and all neighboring states in 2024. In that year, 2.6 attorneys resided in the state for every 1,000 Kansans, compared with 2.9 attorneys for every 1,000 Kansans in 2014. Colorado and Missouri maintained rates near 4.0 attorneys for every 1,000 residents. Nebraska and Oklahoma reported a higher rate in 2024 despite the former having a lower rate than Kansas in 2014, and the latter experiencing a greater percentage decline than Kansas over the decade.
Attorney Workforce Impact in Kansas
The decreasing number of attorneys in Kansas may have an impact on the availability of legal services in the state, particularly in rural areas.
[Note: In July 2025, Massachusetts judges dismissed 102 criminal cases in Boston and Suffolk County due to a state law mandating that charges against defendants be dismissed entirely after 45 days if they were unable to get a court-appointed attorney.]
These workforce shifts form the backdrop against which Kansas’ public legal institutions are operating. As such, this article provides an overview of the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and the State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services, as well as statistics regarding the attorney workforce within those agencies.
Office of the Attorney General
The OAG serves as Kansas’ chief prosecutorial agency, and the Attorney General serves as chief legal officer, handling criminal complaints on behalf of the State in cases that require statewide involvement or cross multiple jurisdictions. The Attorney General is a constitutionally established, elected position with a four-year term, authorized under Article 1 of the Kansas Constitution and statutes including KSA 75-702 to represent the state in criminal and civil proceedings in both state and federal courts.
Salaries for assistant attorneys general range in the mid-$80,000s to around $120,000 annually, depending on assignment and experience. Recruitment and retention have been identified as ongoing challenges for the OAG. In 2023, the Attorney General stated the agency salary levels were generally lower than those offered by the private sector and by surrounding states, which has contributed to persistent workforce shortages. Recent increases in agency funding through legislative action have allowed the OAG to improve hiring and begin closing the compensation gap between the public and private sectors.
Criminal Division
The OAG’s Criminal Division is composed of five sections: Major Crimes; Medicaid Fraud Control Unit; Victims’ Rights Coordination; Economic Crimes; and Investigations. The following details a few of the sections within the Criminal Division of the OAG.
Major Crimes
The Major Crimes section works closely with county and district attorneys to provide prosecutorial assistance in the State’s most complex and demanding cases. In FY 2024, the Major Crimes section provided prosecutorial support on 68 criminal cases, and the section accepted six cases directly from county or district attorney offices.
Medicaid Fraud Control
The Medicaid Fraud Control section is the sole State entity authorized to investigate and prosecute suspected fraud by Medicaid providers. Established under KSA 75-725 to comply with federal mandates, the section investigates both criminal and civil violations, including fraudulent billing and financial exploitation. It also handles cases involving abuse, neglect, or misappropriation of patient funds in Medicaid-funded facilities or services. In FY 2024, the section managed 239 open criminal investigations related to provider fraud and 82 additional open criminal investigations involving patient abuse, neglect, or exploitation.
Economic Crimes
The Economic Crimes section prosecutes cases involving elder and dependent adult fiduciary abuse and exploitation, securities fraud, insurance fraud, tax violations, organized retail crime, illegal gambling, and other economic offenses. In FY 2024, the Economic Crimes section criminally litigated 7 general white-collar cases, 11 securities fraud cases, 24 revenue cases, and 50 insurance fraud cases.
Office of the Solicitor General
The Office of the Solicitor General, also housed within the OAG, handles civil and criminal appeals for the State. It drafts official Attorney General opinions and defends state statutes in constitutional challenges. In FY 2024, there were 52 Kansas counties under contract for appellate services for a pre-set fee with a goal toward achieving efficiency, economies of scale, and greater uniformity in the handling of the State’s criminal appellate work. That year, the Office reviewed 316 appellate briefs submitted by local prosecutors.
State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services
The State Board of Indigents’ Defense Services (BIDS) provides legal counsel to indigent adults charged with felonies through the agency’s public defender offices or its appointed private counsel program. The Kansas public defense system consists of the regional public defender offices and the Assigned Counsel program. Attorneys who are classified as public defenders are employees of the State who work at one of the public defender offices located in the state. Attorneys who are classified as assigned counsel are private attorneys who:
Volunteer to serve on local appointment panels in each judicial district, where they are assigned felony cases in exchange for the current BIDS hourly rate; or
Have accepted contracts from BIDS to handle felony cases in certain jurisdictions under negotiated terms.
The following provides information on the relation between the agency’s regional public defender offices and the Assigned Counsel program.
Public Defender Offices
Until 2025, BIDS had 12 non-capital trial-level public defender officers located throughout the state. In FY 2024, the agency was authorized to employ 99.0 attorneys throughout the then-existing 12 trial-level public defender offices, but only 77.0 attorney positions were filled.
[Note: During the 2024 Legislative Session, the Legislature authorized the creation of 30.0 new full-time equivalent (FTE) positions to establish two new public defender offices, one in the 11th Judicial District and one in the 29th Judicial District. As of September 1, 2025, most of the vacant positions have been filled.]
The agency partly attributes vacancies to the fact that the starting salary for new law school graduates is approximately 28.0 percent below the starting salary at competing prosecutors’ offices around the state.
The agency has previously stated that the lack of criminal defense attorneys within the Kansas public defense system is inadequate to handle the volume of cases being prosecuted. In FY 2024, of the 26,417 felony cases completed in Kansas, attorneys assigned to the regional public defender officers were able to handle only 33.0 percent of those felony cases. Moreover, five of the trial-level public defender offices partially accepted or refused to accept new cases for over half of FY 2024, including the Salina Regional Public Defender Office which refused to accept new cases for 92.1 percent of the fiscal year due to constitutional and ethical concerns.
Public Defender Workforce Concerns
Constitutional and ethical concerns regarding the public defense sector are detailed in a 2023 National Public Defender Workload Study, which states that depending on the level of severity, an attorney should spend anywhere from 35 hours to 248 hours on average per felony case in order to provide the constitutional standard of reasonably effective assistance of counsel. In FY 2024, trial-level public defenders for BIDS were able to spend an average of 13 hours per felony case. The agency states that when attorneys stationed at public defender offices cannot take cases due to constitutional and/or ethical concerns, the Assigned Counsel program comes into play so that indigent defendants can be provided with their constitutional right to counsel.
Assigned Counsel
Insufficient staffing, along with high caseloads, threaten the State’s ability to provide effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, according to BIDS. As such, the agency contracts with private attorneys through its Assigned Counsel program. The agency generally utilizes assigned counsel in geographic areas where a public defender office is not nearby, and in cases where the public defender offices have a conflict of interest or are otherwise unavailable to provide services due to caseloads. In FY 2024, 29 counties had contracts for assigned counsel, which is an increase of 12 counties when compared with FY 2023. All counties in the state were covered by assigned counsel panels, though the agency states that many assigned counsel panel members are beginning to refuse cases for appointment due to their own caseload issues. In FY 2024, assigned counsel handled 67.0 percent of the 26,417 felony criminal cases completed in Kansas.
Assigned Counsel Compensation
Due in part to the difficulty the agency faces in recruiting additional assigned counsel attorneys to take more cases, the 2024 Legislature amended KSA 22-4507(c) to increase the compensation for assigned counsel from $80 per hour to a minimum of $120 per hour, up to $140 per hour. In December 2024, the BIDS Board voted to increase the rate to $125 per hour for FY 2026. The agency notes that costs associated with the Assigned Counsel program will likely continue to increase, including travel costs due to assigned counsel having to travel farther distances in the state to meet with their indigent clients and to attend a variety of legal proceedings. The agency estimates that in FY 2024, the State spent approximately $1,712 per case handled by trial-level public defenders, compared to $1,524 per case handled by assigned counsel.
By Molly Pratt and Arianna Waddell.
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