Standard 3.1. 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.

[Adopted effective October 1, 2012.]

Standard 3.2. The caseload of public defense attorneys shall 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. As used in this Standard, “quality representation” is intended to describe the minimum level of attention, care, and skill that Washington citizens would expect of their state’s criminal justice system.

[Adopted effective October 1, 2012.]

Standard 3.3. General Considerations. Caseload limits reflect the maximum caseloads for fully supported full-time defense attorneys for cases of average complexity and effort in each case type specified. Caseload limits assume a reasonably even distribution of cases throughout the year.

The increased complexity of practice in many areas will require lower caseload limits. The maximum caseload limit should be adjusted downward when the mix of case assignments is weighted toward offenses or case types that demand more investigation, legal research and writing, use of experts, use of social workers, or other expenditures of time and resources. Attorney caseloads should be assessed by the workload required, and cases and types of cases should be weighted accordingly.

If a defender or assigned counsel is carrying a mixed caseload including cases from more than one category of cases, these standards should be applied proportionately to determine a full caseload. In jurisdictions where assigned counsel or contract attorneys also maintain private law practices, the caseload should be based on the percentage of time the lawyer devotes to public defense.

The experience of a particular attorney is a factor in the composition of the case types in the attorney’s caseload, but it is not a factor in adjusting the applicable numerical caseload limits except as follows: attorneys with less than six months of full time criminal defense experience as an attorney should not be assigned more than two-thirds of the applicable maximum numerical caseload limit. This provision applies whether or not the public defense system uses case weighting.

The following types of cases fall within the intended scope of the caseload limits for criminal and juvenile offender cases in standard 3.4 and must be taken into account when assessing an attorney’s numerical caseload: partial case representations, sentence violations, specialty or therapeutic courts, transfers, extraditions, representation of material witnesses, petitions for conditional release or final discharge, and other matters that do not involve a new criminal charge.

Definition of case. A case is defined as the filing of a document with the court naming a person as defendant or respondent, to which an attorney is appointed in order to provide representation. In courts of limited jurisdiction multiple citations from the same incident can be counted as one case.

[Adopted effective October 1, 2012; Amended effective January 1, 2015.]

Standard 3.4. Caseload Limits. The caseload of a full-time public defense attorney or assigned counsel should not exceed the following:

150 felonies per attorney per year; or

300 misdemeanor cases per attorney per year or, in jurisdictions that have not adopted a numerical case weighting system as described in this standard, 400 cases per year; or

250 juvenile offender cases per attorney per year; or

80 open juvenile dependency cases per attorney; or

250 civil commitment cases per attorney per year; or

1 active death penalty trial court case at a time plus a limited number of non-death-penalty cases compatible with the time demand of the death penalty case and consistent with the professional requirements of standard 3.2; or

36 appeals to an appellate court hearing a case on the record and briefs per attorney per year. (The 36 standard assumes experienced appellate attorneys handling cases with transcripts of an average length of 350 pages. If attorneys do not have significant appellate experience and/or the average transcript length is greater than 350 pages, the caseload should be accordingly reduced.)

Full-time rule 9 interns who have not graduated from law school may not have caseloads that exceed twenty-five percent (25%) of the caseload limits established for full-time attorneys.

In public defense systems in which attorneys are assigned to represent groups of clients at first appearance or arraignment calendars without an expectation of further or continuing representation for cases that are not resolved at the time (except by dismissal) in addition to individual case assignments, the attorneys’ maximum caseloads should be reduced proportionally recognizing that preparing for and appearing at such calendars requires additional attorney time. This provision applies both to systems that employ case weighting and those that do not.

Resolutions of cases by pleas of guilty to criminal charges on a first appearance or arraignment docket are presumed to be rare occurrences requiring careful evaluation of the evidence and the law, as well as thorough communication with clients, and must be counted as one case. This provision applies both to systems that employ case weighting and those that do not.

In public defense systems in which attorneys are assigned to represent groups of clients in routine review hearing calendars in which there is no potential for the imposition of sanctions, the attorneys’ maximum caseloads should be reduced proportionally by the amount of time they spend preparing for and appearing at such calendars. This provision applies whether or not the public defense system uses case weighting.

[Adopted effective October 1, 2013, except paragraph 3, regarding misdemeanor caseload limits, effective January 1, 2015; Amended effective January 1, 2015.]

Standard 3.5. Case Counting and Weighting. Attorneys may not count cases using a case weighting system, unless pursuant to written policies and procedures that have been adopted and published by the local government entity responsible for employing, contracting with, or appointing them. A weighting system must:

Standard 3.6. Case Weighting Examples. The following are some examples of situations where case weighting might result in representations being weighted as more or less than one case. The listing of specific examples is not intended to suggest or imply that representations in such situations should or must be weighted at more or less than one case, only that they may be, if established by an appropriately adopted case weighting system.

Related Standards

ABA Standards for Criminal Justice: Prosecution Function and Defense Function Defense Function std. 4-1.2 (3d ed. 1993)

ABA Standards for Criminal Justice: Providing Defense Services std. 5-4.3 (3d ed. 1992)

Am. Bar Ass’n, Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases (rev. ed. 2003)

ABA Comm. on Ethics & Prof’l Responsibility, Formal Op. 06-441 (2006) (Ethical Obligations of Lawyers Who Represent Indigent Criminal Defendants When Excessive Caseloads Interfere With Competent and Diligent Representation)

Am. Council of Chief Defenders, Statement on Caseloads and Workloads (Aug. 24, 2007)

ABA House of Delegates, Eight Guidelines of Public Defense Related to Excessive Caseloads (Aug. 2009)

Task Force on Courts, Nat’l Advisory Comm’n on Criminal Standards & Goals, Courts std. 13.12 (1973)

Model Code of Prof’l Responsibility DR 6-101.

ABA House of Delegates, The Ten Principles of a Public Defense Delivery System (Feb. 2002)

ABA House of Delegates, Standards of Practice for Lawyers Who Represent Children in Abuse and Neglect Cases (Feb. 1996)

Nat’l Legal Aid & Defender Ass’n, Am. Council of Chief Defenders, Ethical Opinion 03-01 (2003).

Nat’l Legal Aid & Defender Ass’n, Standards for Defender Services std. IV-1 (1976)

Nat’l Legal Aid & Defender Ass’n, Model Contract for Public Defense Services (2000)

Nat’l Ass’n of Counsel for Children, NACC Recommendations for Representation of Children in Abuse and Neglect Cases (2001)

Seattle Ordinance 121501 (June 14, 2004)

Indigent Defense Servs. Task Force, Seattle-King County Bar Ass’n, Guidelines for Accreditation of Defender Agencies Guideline 1 (1982)

Wash. State Office of Pub. Defense, Parents Representation Program Standards of Representation (2009)

Bureau of Judicial Assistance, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Indigent Defense Series No. 4, Keeping Defender Workloads Manageable (2001) (NCJ 185632 )