Maryland’s Office of the Public Defender Seeks Support from NAPD for Bill to Limit Caseloads

The Maryland Office of the Public Defender is taking a proactive stance on the issue of caseloads and workloads of its trial attorneys in the current legislative session. A bill has been drafted by the office and introduced by legislative sponsors which if adopted would limit caseloads to the Maryland specific standards developed in the 2005 workload study conducted by the National Center for State Courts.

The proposed legislation would require OPD to panel individual cases to private attorneys when the individual attorney's workload exceeds standards for the particular area of law (e.g. circuit, district, juvenile…etc.) The Maryland Office of the Public Defender reached out to NAPD for a letter of support for this bill, and it was signed  by NAPD Chair Tim Young on behalf of the Steering Committee. 

NAPD has been leading efforts in jurisdictions throughout the country to encourage systems to collect and analyze data to establish workload limits. OPD Maryland is grateful for NAPD’s support on this critical issue.