Standard:

The contract or other employment agreement shall specify the types of cases for which representation shall be provided and the maximum number of cases which each attorney shall be expected to handle. The caseload of public defense attorneys should allow each lawyer to give each client the time and effort necessary to ensure effective representation. Neither defender organizations, county offices, contract attorneys nor assigned counsel should accept workloads that, by reason of their excessive size, interfere with the rendering of quality representation.

The caseload of a full-time public defense attorney or assigned counsel shall not exceed the following:

150 Felonies per attorney per year; or
300 Misdemeanors per attorney per year; or
250 Juvenile Offender cases per attorney per year; or
60 Juvenile dependency clients per attorney per year; or³
250 Civil Commitment cases per attorney per year; or
25 Appeals to appellate court hearing a case on the record and briefs per attorney per year.

A case is defined by the Office of the Administrator for the Courts as: A filing of a document with the court naming a person as defendant or respondent.

Caseload limits should be determined by the number and type of cases being accepted and on the local prosecutor's charging and plea bargaining practices. In jurisdictions where assigned counsel or contract attorneys also maintain private law practices, the contracting agency should ensure that attorneys not accept more cases than they can reasonably discharge. In these situations, the caseload ceiling should be based on the percentage of time the lawyer devotes to public defense.

Related and Source Standards:

American Bar Association, Standards for Criminal Justice, 4-1.2, 5-4.3.

National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Task Force on Courts, 1973, Standard 13.12.

American Bar Association Disciplinary Rule 6-101.

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

National Legal Aid and Defender Association, Guidelines for Negotiating and Awarding Indigent Defense Contracts, 1984, Standard III-6 and III-12.

Seattle-King County Bar Association Indigent Defense Services Task Force, Guidelines for Accreditation of Defender Agencies, 1982, Guideline Number 1.

Commentary:

Five years after these standards were first adopted, many public defender and contract defense attorneys are still handling caseloads substantially above the levels recommended by the Washington Defender Association and endorsed by the state bar. Many cities and some counties are still using fixed-price contracts which contain no caseload limitations at all.

Caseload levels are the single biggest predictor of the quality of public defense representation. Not even the most able and industrious lawyers can provide effective representation when their workloads are unmanageable. A warm body with a law degree, able to affix his or her name to a plea agreement, is not an acceptable substitute for the effective advocate envisioned when the Supreme Court extended the right to counsel to all persons facing incarceration.

The American Bar Association's Standards for Criminal Justice call heavy caseloads "one of the most significant impediments to the furnishing of quality defense services for the poor" and note that lawyers with too many clients may not be able to carry out the basic responsibilities outlined in the Code of Professional Responsibility. The Code admonishes an attorney not to accept "employment...when he is unable to render competent service" or to handle cases "without preparation adequate in the circumstances." The "Defense Function" section of the American Bar Association's Standards also urges attorneys not to accept more cases than they can reasonably discharge.

In addition to the risks of an innocent person being unjustly convicted and of accused persons receiving unequal treatment because they are too poor to retain private counsel, these high caseloads have serious consequences to the integrity and efficiency of the judicial system. High caseloads result in correspondingly high turnover among public defenders; inexperienced defenders are less efficient, less able to move cases quickly through the system; and the number of cases which must be retried because of improper defense may increase. Finally, lawyers become vulnerable to malpractice lawsuits when they are unable to meet basic professional responsibilities. Legal research, investigation and the timely presentation of motions become luxuries to the attorney burdened with too many cases.

Other factors, often beyond defense counsel's control, affect the number of cases he or she may effectively dispatch. A prosecutor's refusal to accept plea negotiations, the seriousness and complexity of the types of cases being handled, and, for assigned counsel and some contract attorneys, the number of privately retained cases being accepted, will reduce the total number of cases counsel can discharge.

If the caseload levels being contracted for approach these recommended levels, the attorney undertaking the work should not have a significant number of privately retained cases. The American Bar Association Standards for Providing Defense Services state that full-time defense attorneys "should be prohibited from engaging in the private practice of law." The commentary on this standard notes that when part-time defenders are used, clear standards for performance of duties, particularly as to limits on private practice, should be adopted.

The caseload levels recommended here follow closely those caseload guidelines specified by two national studies, the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals, Task Force on Courts, 1973, and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, Guidelines for Negotiating and Awarding Indigent Legal Defense Contracts (1984). They are also drawn from the standards approved in 1982 by the King County Bar Association following a Task Force study which found that in the absence of guidelines, public defender offices were being made to accept so many cases that clients' constitutional rights were seriously threatened.

The National Advisory Commission standard recommends 150 felonies per attorney per year and 400 misdemeanors, figures set in 1973, before the full impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's Argersinger decision was felt. Recent changes in Washington Law have resulted in substantially more misdemeanor jury trials with a corresponding increase in attorney time per case. For these reasons, we recommend 300 misdemeanors per attorney per year.

One measure of the reasonableness of these figures is to assess the amount of time an attorney would spend on a case under these standards. An accepted national standard for attorneys is to work 1650 billable hours per year. Even under the caseload standards recommended here, an attorney could only spend an average of 11 hours per case if he or she were to complete 150 felonies during a year. One serious case, requiring 40 to 50 hours to bring to trial, limits the time an attorney can devote to his or her remaining cases.

The situation is similar for misdemeanor attorneys. If the recommended standard of 300 cases per year were adopted, an attorney would be able to give roughly 5 hours to each case. The expanded right to jury trial for misdemeanor charges requires a substantial increase in preparation and litigation time. Currently in Washington State, most full-time public defense attorneys are handling significantly more than these recommended levels and work upwards of 2000 hours each year.

In setting these recommended caseload levels, we assume the attorneys will have adequate investigative and clerical support. Clearly, where these essential services are not available, maximum caseload levels should be set at lower levels. The limits may also have to be adjusted downward in rural areas where attorneys must travel great distances between courts.