A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia seeks an emergency injunction to bar the city from proceeding with criminal prosecution of defendants represented by court-appointed counsel until it raises the lawyers' fees.

"This is really serious," said Samuel C. Stretton, who filed the lawsuit with three colleagues who handle such cases and five indigent defendants who say their rights have been violated by the current system. "In a democratic society, you have to provide fair trials, and you have to fund it. Otherwise, I think they have to stop trying indigent defendants."

David C. Lawrence, the city's court administrator, declined to comment yesterday, saying he had not seen the lawsuit.

"We've not been officially notified and the solicitor has not had an opportunity to review details of the suit," said Mayor Nutter's spokesman, Doug Oliver.

The lawsuit repeats arguments Stretton made 18 years ago when he successfully sued the city courts and pushed through small increases in fees for criminal lawyers who handle cases for the poor.

Indigent defendants are generally given court-appointed lawyers when public defenders cannot be assigned because of conflicts of interest.

In the suit, Stretton said that fees paid to court-appointed lawyers amount to only 10 to 15 percent of what private attorneys are paid and are among the lowest - if not the lowest - in the nation. Such "below-market" rates mean that lawyers for the poor often cannot afford investigators and other experts necessary to prepare an adequate defense.

In homicide cases - including capital cases - court-appointed lawyers are paid $2,000 to prepare a defense, plus $400 a day in court. Felony cases pay $650, plus $350 a day in court, and misdemeanor cases pay a flat fee of $350. In juvenile court, lawyers are paid $400 to represent clients charged with felonies and $300 in misdemeanor cases.

Moreover, the fees are not paid until well after the criminal trials and include no compensation for overhead costs, such as photocopying and secretarial help. As a result, the complaint alleges, actual compensation can be as low as "only $5 to $10 per hour."

The suit says that many experienced criminal-defense lawyers have declined to take court-appointed cases in recent years and that others who do are reconsidering because "they cannot ethically perform their responsibilities" for such low pay.

The result, the lawsuit says, is a failure to provide equal protection under the law, a right to counsel, and the right to a speedy trial - effectively, constitutional violations.

A. Michael Pratt, chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association, said he had not seen the suit. But he said he shared in the concern about the low fees.

"Lawyers are grossly underpaid in this important work," he said.

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