Law360 (August 3, 2026, 4:43 PM EDT) -- Two unions representing hundreds of New York public defenders remain on strike Monday, with managers from the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem requesting third-party mediation during their most recent negotiations on Sunday.

In a statement to Law360 Sunday night, NDS Deputy Executive Director Shannon M. Anglero said NDS leaders asked for a mediator "because we believe the remaining issues are appropriate for the assistance of a neutral third party," but said the union will only consider this option if NDS first revises its proposal.

Rita Akincilar — a staff organizer with the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys, "the United Auto Workers affiliate that represents members of the Bronx Defenders and the NDS Harlem unions — told Law360 Pulse on Monday that the union has concerns about mediation potentially delaying the bargaining process.

"We will consider it," she said. "We need to do more research on available mediators."

Anglero said NDS' most recent proposal to the union "represents an investment of more than $4.3 million in employee compensation" and would see most bargaining unit employees receive annual pay increases of more than 3% each year.

"The union did not accept that proposal because the parties remain apart on healthcare contributions," Anglero said. "In prior discussions, the union proposed lower salary increases in exchange for maintaining fully employer-paid healthcare. In response, NDS proposed preserving the current health plans with fully paid premiums, no deductibles, and no co-insurance, as long as annual healthcare cost increases remain below 10 percent. If healthcare costs exceed that threshold, NDS also proposed safeguards to limit the impact on employee salary increases."

On Friday, however, the union called this characterization of the proposed 3% raises misleading in an Instagram post, saying NDS leaders are actually offering a 1% increase on top of the 2% step adjustments to which employees are already entitled.

The update comes a little more than a week after NDS union members walked off the job Friday, July 24. The Bronx Defenders union, another ALAA shop, followed suit the following Monday, and remains on the picket line today.

On Monday morning, Bronx Defenders Executive Director Juval O. Scott said in a statement that the union rejected its most recent offer, which included raising first-year social workers salary from $85,600 to $90,000, raising first-year attorneys salary from $85,600 to $95,000, 3% cost of living adjustments and additional pay for investigators, homicide practice advocates and holiday arraignment shifts.

"Our remaining disagreement is about how to address attorney recruitment and retention. Attorney compensation has fallen too far behind comparable legal work," Scott added. "As a result, attorneys are leaving [Bronx Defenders] after two to four years, just as they are gaining the experience our clients, teams, and newer staff rely on. When we ask them why they are leaving, the answer is almost always money. We must pay our attorneys more."

Jessica Coffrin-St. Julien, an immigration attorney with Bronx Defenders, or BxD, and a member of the union's contract action team, told Law360 Pulse last week that while the union wants to keep its single salary scale for attorneys and social workers, it has since offered to agree to a differential for attorneys.

"Management is sort of painting this as a zero-sum game, and we reject the premise," she said. "The work that we do demands a lot of all of us. Management has never said they can't afford to meet the union's salary proposals."

Tony Chiarito, the managing director of strategic communications at the Bronx Defenders, told Law360 Pulse in an email Friday that NDS' management has distributed the additional funds it received from the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice to union members' retirement accounts. This was initially part of management's proposal to the union, but it distributed the funds on Friday to avoid forfeiting them.

Coffrin-St. Julien told Law360 Pulse on Monday that the union did not object to this.

"We are gratified that BxD Management abandoned using the retirement funds as a bargaining chip and instead distributed them to staff, as they could have done all along," she said.

--Editing by Amy French.

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