How to Leverage Public Defense Workload Studies
Geoffrey T. Burkhart · The Knowledge Bank (The Ohio State University) · 2017
Crushing caseloads are perhaps the most vexing problem facing American public defense. 1 Attorneys saddled with hundreds or thousands of cases per year must jettison core legal tasks-client communication, investigation, legal research-in violation of constitutional and ethical duties. 2 As a result, clients, who have a right to effective, ethical counsel, receive only nominal representation.Workload studies have risen as a forceful tool in fighting excessive workloads.The American Bar Association's (ABA) Missouri Project paved the way for legislation to provide the first sizable funding increase in that state in many years.3 Other studies are now underway in Colorado, Louisiana, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, with more on the horizon.The studies provide data that can be wielded to shape public defense through education, legislation, and litigation.While these studies signal a great advance, more can be done.By pairing statistics with stories, building national workload standards, and varying litigation strategies, public defenders may yet realize reasonable workloads.This Article explores public defense workload studies and how to leverage them.Part II shows how excessive workloads prevent attorneys from meeting their ethical and constitutional duties.Part III discusses past attempts to address * Deputy Director, Center for Innovation, American Bar Association.The views expressed are my own and do not reflect the views of the ABA. 1 See Peter A. Joy, Ensuring the Ethical Representation of Clients in the Face of Excessive Caseloads, 75 MO.L. REV.771, 791 (2010) ("[E]xcessive caseloads is the primary problem public defenders face in attempting to provide ethically competent, zealous representation to their clients.").2 Lauren Sudeall Lucas, Note, Effectively Ineffective: The Failure of Courts to Address Underfunded Indigent Defense Systems, 118 HARV.L. REV.1731, 1731 (2005) ("Today's public defenders are underfunded and overburdened.Their caseloads and workloads have risen to crushing levels in recent years, and caps on funding both for individual cases and for overall compensation levels have effectively rendered many lawyers ineffective.").