The Georgia Indigent Defense Act requires that the Standards Council adopt "standards for maintaining and operating circuit public defender offices, including requirements regarding . . . size of legal and supporting staff of such offices" (O.C.G.A. § 17-12-8(b)(1)), and "standards for assistant public defenders and appointed council case loads." O.C.G.A. § 17-12-8(b)(3).

The Standards Council adopts as its initial standard1 the case load limits recommended by the American Bar Association Standard 3 “Caseload Limits and Types of Cases.” This recommendation was adopted by the Georgia Indigent Defense Council (the predecessor of the Standards Council), and was also approved by the Georgia Supreme Court on November 9, 1998.

The Standard is as follows:

Each circuit public defender office shall employ, beginning on January 1, 2005, a sufficient number of full-time, qualified lawyers as public defenders, so that the average council case loads of the circuit public defender, and of each assistant circuit public defender, shall not exceed the following limits:

150 Felonies (excluding those in which the death penalty is being sought) per attorney per year, or

300 Misdemeanor Cases per attorney per year, or

250 Misdemeanor Juvenile Offender Cases per attorney per year, or

60 Juvenile Dependency Clients per attorney per year, or

250 Civil Commitment Cases per attorney per year, or

25 Appeals to the Georgia Supreme Court or the Georgia Court of Appeals per attorney per year.

The standard applicable to each category of cases is not a suggestion or guideline, but is intended to be a maximum limitation on the average annual case loads of each lawyer employed as a public defender in the Circuit Public Defender Offices. These limits are not intended to be cumulative or aggregated (e.g., an attorney may not represent defendants in 150 felonies and 300 misdemeanor cases per year), but should be applied proportionately in the case of an attorney whose case load includes cases in more than one category, based on the relative weight attributed to each case in each category under the Standard for Weighting Cases to be adopted by the Standards Council.

Legal Authority:
O.C.G.A. § 17-12-8(b)(1);
O.C.G.A. § 17-12-8(b)(3).

¹ The Standards Council intends to review this Standard as soon as it is able to accumulate reliable statistical data that reflects the actual case loads (both numerical and hourly) of public defenders employed in each Circuit Public Defender Office, and may modify these numerical limits or adopt weighting criteria as the Standards Council deems appropriate.