An attorney from Utah reported that misdemeanor public defenders in that state carry caseloads of 2,500.
6 Hours 400 cases per year
In Grant County, Washington, in 2006, the four de- fenders in county misdemeanor court averaged 927.25 cases each. 82
The Meaning of the Caseload Numbers A lawyer who takes three weeks of vacation and 10 holi- days a year has 47 weeks available to work for clients. If he or she never takes a day of sick leave and works 10 hours a day, five days a week, 83 the attorney’s schedule would allow about one hour and 10 minutes per case if the lawyer had a caseload of 2,000 cases per year. A lawyer with a caseload of 1,200 would have less than two hours to spend on each case. The time per case has to cover the client interview, talk- ing with the prosecutor, reading police reports and other relevant discovery, conducting legal research and factual investigation, preparing for court, writing motions and memoranda, including sentencing memoranda, and at- tending court hearings. There would be no allotted time for training, reading new appellate cases, or attending meetings at the courthouse or the local bar association re- lated to misdemeanor practice. A Kentucky columnist aptly summed up the crisis of ex- cessive caseloads, stating: “The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to an attorney, not the right to three hours of a grossly overloaded public de- fender’s time.” 84
2 Hours
2,000 cases per year 70 Minutes
19,000 cases per year 7 Minutes
22
1,200 cases per year
Approximate Time Per Case
Excessive Caseloads Put Lawyers in Jeopardy
In most state ethical rules, as in the Model Rules of Pro- fessional Conduct, the very first substantive rule states, “A lawyer shall provide competent representation to a client. Competent representation requires the legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation reasonably necessary for the representation.” 86 A number of ethical opinions have concluded that if her caseload is threatening her abil- ity to competently defend current clients, a public defender must refuse to accept further cases. Additionally, if refus- ing future cases is insufficient, the public defender has a duty to seek to withdraw from existing cases to ensure competent representation for other defendants. In 1990, the Arizona state bar issued an ethics opinion stat- ing “when a Public Defender has made a factual determi- nation that his or her Office cannot competently and diligently represent the number of persons assigned to it, the Public Defender must take action so that ‘A lawyer’s workload should be controlled so that each matter can be handled adequately.’” 87 The opinion observed that this “will require the Public Defender to seek to decline ap- pointments or withdraw from appointments already made until caseloads are manageable.” 88
“I think there has been a sharpening awareness of the ethical considerations for public defenders. … Public defenders have handled caseloads few private lawyers would have ever thought of handling. Poor people have a right to a lawyer who is just as ethical as people of means do.”
— Ernie Lewis, former Public Advocate, state of Kentucky. 85
Minor Crimes, Massive Waste
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