John Delaney, Kentucky DPA Conflict Program Manager, delivers a rousing elevator speech to Nicole Lesniewski, DPA Administrative Ass't, at the Inter-site Summit.

1. Hire an experienced attorney to provide supervision and mentoring for the contract counsel in Kentucky's northern region, one of the five geographical DPA regions in the Commonwealth, and hire an administrative assistant for data entry.  
2. Train and mentor contract conflict counsel.  
3. Use data to identify differences in various dimensions of DPA contract representation between cases handled by contract attorneys from the Northern region having the benefit of case reviews, mentoring, and co-counsel and those in the remaining four regions.
4. Use data to measure the efficacy of the DPA trainings.

 

Program Agency: Mayor's Office for Criminal Justice (MOCJ)

Research Partner: Center for Court Innovation (CCI)

 

Background: Most indigent defense in New York City is provided by several independent, non-profit organizations, or "institutional providers," including the oldest and largest, the New York Legal Aid Society. Case volume is high; for instance there were more than 365,000 arraignments in 2013, of which 95% involved clients who are indigent.  While most are represented by institutional providers, in conflict of interest cases in two Judicial Departments of the New York Courts, the First Department (Manhattan and the Bronx) and the Second Department (Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island), private attorneys from the Assigned Counsel Plan (ACP) are appointed. These court-appointed attorneys are routinely referred to as "18-B lawyers," due to the section of the County Law regulating their practice. The ACP currently has two administrators who are responsible for supervising approximately 700 active 18-B attorneys. Issues identified in the grant application included 1) inadequate funding; 2) limited administrative oversight and monitoring, given the 350-to-1 attorney to supervisor ratio; 3) lack of a computerized case management system; and 4) limited reporting and performance monitoring capacity. The only data available about attorney performance is that included in an 18-B attorney's payment voucher, which is not filed with the ACP administrators but the City's Department of Finance (DoF), at the conclusion of the case. The issue of limited administrative oversight and monitoring, in particular, is inconsistent with ABA Principle Eight.

Program Design:  MOCJ and CCI will 1) identify shortcomings in the existing system of data collection and monitoring; 2) work in partnership with the Department of Finance to develop recommendations for a new system that addresses current gaps and still satisfies the payment vouchering requirements; 3) design and develop a system of effective best practices and performance indicators and a plan for effectively implementing that system; and 4) analyze current 18-B attorney performance in order to identify concrete areas for future efforts.  The City and CCI proposed a combination of technology and research activities. Although some of the activities will overlap, the technology component will concentrate on 1) analyzing ACP's existing case management and data collection processes; 2) defining and documenting existing functions and capabilities; 3) presenting high-level opportunities for improvement within the existing process; and 4) providing business requirements for a new application that can serve as the platform for additional improvements in the agency's case tracking and data collection process.

 

	L to R: Saira Kahn, Budget Analyst, and Chidinma Ume, Associate Counsel, both of NYC Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, and Lindsay Horstman, Alameda County Assistant Public Defender.

Research Design: The research component will work to 1) identify and articulate best practices in ACP's core practice area (i.e., indigent defense representation of felony and misdemeanor cases); 2) identify key performance indicators that correspond to the articulated best practices; 3) conduct judicial focus groups to explore judges' perceptions of the quality of indigent defense representation amongst both the institutional providers and ACP attorneys; and 4) conduct a quantitative analysis of current ACP performance utilizing existing data sources.  

 

Goals:

Program: MOCJ, CCI and the Smart Defense TTA team have met with various stakeholders in the ACP system including the ACP administrators, a representative group of judges from the First and Second Departments before whom the ACP attorneys practice, DoF personnel involved in the vouchering system, and leaders of the relevant bar associations to obtain information and feedback about the existing ACP system and attorney performance.   MOCJ has worked together with DoF to incorporate ACP needs into the imminent Request for Proposals for the redesign and modernization of DoF's IT system and its ACP vouchering component.  MOCJ has also used grant funds to engage Professor Steve Zeidman of the CUNY Law School to provide strategic advisory services throughout the course of its grant.

Research:  CCI is conducting a survey of the capabilities and costs of computerized case management systems (CMS) appropriate to indigent defense which might allow better oversight and monitoring of 18-B attorneys. CCI facilitated demonstration of a possible CMS. CCI and MOCJ have developed a draft of fields for monthly data reporting by 18-B attorneys.  At the same time, CCI, led by researcher Melissa Labriola, is identifying key performance indicators for indigent defense in the ACP system.