KwaZulu-Natal state attorney Craig Bailey is drowning in his workload of 700 cases, ranging from medical negligence to police brutality.
His work life is a "juggling act" and he constantly prays "that I have not missed something important".
Bailey represents the state in government-related litigation. His admission is contained in an affidavit submitted when pleading for leniency after a judge threatened to make him pay out of his own pocket for the wasted costs of the adjournment of a multimillion-rand medical negligence claim.
Bailey is among 33 lawyers working for the state attorney's office in KwaZulu-Natal who embarked on a "go slow", about three weeks ago refusing to take on new cases for a month.
And according to a 2016 Public Service Commission report, the working conditions in KwaZulu-Natal are mirrored in the rest of South Africa.
In the past financial year, 300 state attorneys nationally handled 248,000 files. Experts say that to reach an acceptable standard for the caseload of state attorneys, 2,487 attorneys would be needed.The report found that seven out of 10 cases handled by the state attorney's office are lost, resulting in massive financial implications for the government.
In Bailey's case, the Registrar's Office had brought forward the trial date and, he conceded, he had forgotten to diarise it "because I am so inundated".
He said: "It was not wilful. It was consequent upon the stressful environment which is beyond my control.
"A large part of my practice is made up of wrongful arrest matters, which have become a feeding frenzy for private attorneys.
"Every day is a constant effort to keep my head above water and I make every effort to do what I can to save matters from catastrophic ends."
A former state attorney employee, who asked not be named, described work conditions as "abusive".
"I was working long hours, and on Saturdays, and I forfeited so much leave. Yet I still dropped the ball. I am a very conscientious person, but it is not possible to deal with that number of cases. There were days when I sat behind my desk and just cried. It broke me.
"I had seven cabinets crammed with files. I used my office chairs and the floor for the overflow," she said.
This is of little comfort to Estcourt mother Mbali Nzimande and her four-year-old daughter, Snamile.
The young mother's joy at giving birth at the provincial hospital four years ago turned to despair when there were complications and no medical experts to attend to her newborn.
"I was scared. I could feel something was wrong because she didn't cry when she was delivered. "
This lack of medical care - even during her pregnancy - she believes is the reason her daughter was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, a disorder caused by damage to the brain.
She lodged a medical negligence claim against the department of health two years ago, saying her daughter urgently needs physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy.
But there has been no progress on her case in two years.
Nzimande's attorney, Michael Friedman, said the impact of the crisis at the state attorney's office is "long adjournments while those entitled to compensation are suffering".
Earlier this year, attorneys working at the office sent a memo to their boss, Shirley Naidoo, threatening industrial action and complaining of the "unmanageable file counts, causing morale decline, health issues and an exodus of staff".
A recent meeting between the attorneys, the Public Servants Association and Vusi Madonsela, the director-general of the Department of Justice, at which possible solutions were put on the table, has not addressed their concerns.
Association provincial manager Claude Naiker said if the department did not act, the situation could develop into a full-blown strike.
The department did not respond to queries...