Standard:

The legal representation plan should provide for adequate numbers of investigators, secretaries, paralegals, social work staff, mental health professionals and other support services. These professionals are essential to ensure the effective performance of defense counsel during trial preparation, in the preparation of dispositional plans, and at sentencing.

1. Secretaries - At least one full-time secretary should be employed for every four staff attorneys. Fewer secretaries may be necessary, however, if the agency has access to word processing or overload secretaries, or other additional staff performing clerical work.
   
2. Social Work Staff - Social work staff should be available to assist in developing release, treatment, and dispositional alternatives.
   
3. Mental Health Professionals - Each agency should have access to mental health professionals to perform mental health evaluations.
   

Related Standards:

American Bar Association, Standards for Criminal Justice, 4-8.1 and 5-1.4.

National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Task Force on Courts, Standard 13.14.

National Legal Aid and Defender Association, Standards for Defender Services, Standard IV-3.

National Legal Aid and Defender Association, Guidelines for Negotiating and Awarding Indigent Defense Contracts, 1984, Standard III-8.

Seattle-King County Bar Association Indigent Defense Services Task Force, Guidelines for Accreditation of Defender Agencies, 1982, Guideline Number 7.

Commentary:

An effective defense cannot be undertaken without adequate support staff services. These services include not only those needed for trial preparation, but also those required for effective defense participation in every phase of the defense. Secretaries with legal training are clearly essential to the efficient preparation of pre-trial motions and affidavits. Social service personnel are necessary to defense counsel at the sentencing stage when the judge may consider a range of sentencing alternatives. The pre-sentence reports prepared by defense social workers may be decisive in the court's selection of the term of incarceration or use of alternatives to incarceration. Mental health professionals, in their evaluation and treatment recommendations for clients, also play an important part in the trial preparation and sentencing phase of a case. The defense at trial may be based on the accused's mental state at the time of an incident; the court's disposition at sentencing may turn on mitigating factors presented by a psychological evaluation.