The Orleans Parish public defenders office needs at least $7 million a year -- more than double next year's budget projection -- for a system that constitutionally represents all its clients, a consultant for the office testified Friday.

Right now, Ronald Sullivan said, most clients are not receiving such representation. And even with positive steps being taken within the office -- with attorneys on full-time, a move planned to less-cramped office space, plans for new computers and more than two phone lines -- the office still will fall far short, he said.

"The office is working extremely hard, every day," Sullivan told state District Judge Arthur Hunter, who held the hearing to get an update on the matter. "But they're not there yet."

The adequacy of the office's resources has long been a simmering concern -- one that boiled over last month, when Hunter ordered four inmates released and their trials postponed until they could get sufficient representation.

The public defender's office had set that ruling in motion by asking the judge to postpone the prosecution of the cases until it had enough lawyers and money to do its job effectively.

On Friday, Hunter reiterated his belief that the public defender's office lacks adequate funding to represent indigent defendants. But, he questioned how the office could continue accepting cases if the representation provided is so poor.

He ordered the Orleans indigent defenders board to set a date for when the office could no longer accept new cases and provide him with it by Dec. 1.

District Judge Calvin Johnson, who also has been involved in the indigent defense matter, sat in on part of Friday's lengthy hearing. He didn't publicly discuss the hearing.

Sullivan said he proposed a $3.3 million budget for 2007, which would create a deficit of potentially more than $500,000. He did not say what this year's budget for the public defender's office is, though Steve Singer, chief of trials for the office and an assistant clinical professor at Loyola Law School, said the office has been "sort of living off" one-time emergency grants, which followed Hurricane Katrina, and money "borrowed" from allocations for 2007 and 2008.

Without additional cash, Sullivan said the office will need to start laying off lawyers in 2008.

Singer said the office wants help from the state Legislature. "There are currently civil rights violations going on," Singer told reporters. With steps being taken already, more money would go a long way toward fixing the situation, he said.

David Pipes, an assistant Orleans Parish district attorney, said the two sides are expected to subpoena each other's financial records.

The district attorney's office has fought any halting of prosecutions. Neither he nor Singer knew if the defendants ordered released by Hunter had, indeed, been freed.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)