LA GRANDE — Counties across Eastern Oregon have struggled over the past few years to hire attorneys to prosecute criminal charges, and officials believe a variety of factors, including uncompetitive salaries, have contributed to the vacant positions.

Wallowa County is bereft of a deputy district attorney for its already strained staff.

Morrow County and Grant County each have just their district attorney to handle cases.

Umatilla County has just five prosecutors — including the district attorney — instead of the normal 10 attorneys.

Union County seems to have fared better, but even its office is down one deputy district attorney.

Only Baker County has a fully staffed prosecution team.

Every other county in Northeastern Oregon has positions open for deputy attorneys. Those positions have been hard to fill, and in some cases have been left open for at least three years.

Grant County District Attorney Jim Carpenter has had an open position since 2018 — except a brief period when a prosecutor fresh out of college worked for a short stint before leaving to become a local public defender. Carpenter remains the county’s sole prosecutor.

“Following his departure, I had no confidence that I would be able to find a replacement,” Carpenter wrote in an email, “especially knowing that areas such as Deschutes and Multnomah, which pay much better than northeastern counties can, had numerous openings and I would not be able to complete with them for quality applicants.”

Carpenter had an agreement with Grant County that he would serve as county counsel in return for funding for a deputy district attorney position; before then, the role was funded through a grant. Unable to locate a suitable attorney to fill the role as deputy, he resigned from his position as counselor in February 2020.

Likewise, Wallowa County District Attorney Rebecca Frolander has had an open position for three years. She was the deputy prosecutor there before she was elected as district attorney.

“From 2018 up until we revamped the position in the fall of 2018, I received two applications,” Frolander said, “but before I could even get them interviewed they took jobs across the state.”

For a long while after Frolander became district attorney in 2012, grants funded the deputy district attorney position in Wallowa County. But it sat vacant for an extended period, and that grant money had to be returned and the job left unfilled.

The paper chaseData from the Oregon State Bar during the past decade show the number of examinees per year steadily dropping — approximately 12 less attorneys each year pass the bar based on a simple linear regression model. The exam has not become more difficult over time, but people are taking fewer attempts to pass it.

And in 2020 the pandemic ushered in a “diploma privilege,” which allowed newly graduated law students to bypass the bar entirely and receive their license — a first for Oregon. But even then, only 343 attorneys were minted in Oregon that year. It was the lowest admission numbers since 1972 when just 310 attorneys passed the bar exam.

Lower numbers alone don’t make shortages — they need to be coupled with a higher number of lawyers retiring or leaving the field. And that is exactly what is happening. According to a 2017 economic survey released by the Oregon State Bar, nearly 20% of respondents said they had planned on retiring within the next five years — or by 2022. Additionally, the average age of practicing lawyers was 47 according to the survey.

But perhaps the biggest reason why lawyers have given the cold shoulder to Eastern Oregon attorney offices is salaries in the rural areas have not been able to compete with the metropolitan areas.

According to the economic survey from the Oregon State Bar, the gap is significant. Median income for the 2017 survey shows an average Oregon lawyer can expect a salary of $105,000 per year. Eastern Oregon attorneys will see $84,000. Portland attorneys, however, will earn $125,000, or nearly 20% more than the Oregon average and roughly 50% more than those working in Eastern Oregon. That $41,000 a year difference means student loans can be paid off much faster.

But those averages, which cover all attorneys, not just prosecutors, still are higher than the advertised salary posted for many Eastern Oregon counties.

Union County, which has one open position, offers a starting salary of about $56,000 a year and going up to $92,000 a year based on experience. Morrow County, which has no deputy district attorney at the moment, advertises $68,400 per year with the ability to earn up to an additional $30,000 per year by doing county and city work. Umatilla County pays up to $77,000 for an entry level deputy district attorney.

Wallowa County’s open position advertises a yearly salary of just over $52,000. Frolander said the salary for a prosecutor was raised recently, but has yet to attract any prosecutors to join the team in Wallowa County. While the district attorney’s office waits for applicants, the lack of qualified staff means cases sometimes don’t receive the attention they deserve.

“There are cases that I have resolved for less than I wanted to,” Frolander said, “and there have been cases I’ve declined to prosecute due to resources.”

Frolander also said the coronavirus pandemic had created a traffic jam of cases that has yet to clear, further impacting the office’s ability to prosecute crimes.

“Prosecutors should be able to make decisions on whether to pursue a criminal action, based on the merits of the case, rather than on the resources available,” Carpenter wrote. “However, that is exactly the position many prosecutors in Northeastern Oregon are in at the moment. The lack of available deputy prosecutors and the lack of funding to attract the qualified applicants leave us in the position of making resource based decisions every day.”

Umatilla County District Attorney Dan Primus said his office was able to increase the salary, but he said that money isn’t the sole cause of hiring woes in Eastern Oregon.

“I think that regionally, it plays a role in what we’re doing. I think it’s also less desirable to be a prosecutor,” Primus said.