NCJ Number
116889
Date Published
1988
Length
29 pages
Annotation
After a brief history of the development of caseload standards in public defender offices, this report describes the methodology and purposes of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association's (NLDA's) caseweighting project, which will identify the most significant factors that influence the workload of a public defender's office.
Abstract
The project was occasioned by some of the early caseweighting (the amount of effort, measured in units of time, for the lawyer to complete work on the caseload) efforts that attempted to include too many factors in the equation for workload projections. The data collection occurred in three jurisdictions: Hawaii; Nashville, Tenn.; and Lincoln, Neb. In each of the jurisdictions, a minimum of 450 felony and 450 misdemeanor cases were examined. Using both the time expended by lawyers on these cases and other case characteristics, the project will provide each of these jurisdictions with information about how to derive accurate workload projections. Also, the common factors shared by each of these jurisdictions will be examined to identify what factors most commonly affect workload in defender offices in general. This report outlines what a defender office needs to establish its own caseweighting system. It discusses staff commitment, definitions, a management information system, and standards. The report concludes by answering some common questions about the use of caseweighting. Included are the NLADA caseweighting questionnaire and results of the 1988 Public Defender Survey. 37 footnotes.