Step 4: Divide Annual Hours Needed by Annual Hours Available Per FTE to get FTEs Needed

Step Four is to figure out how many attorneys the provider needs. To do this, annual hours needed of attorney time needed (from Step 3) is divided by the number of hours each year a full-time equivalent (FTE) attorney can spend on casework. The result is the number of FTE attorneys needed for the provider’s caseload. To complete this Step 4, a provider must:

Calculate Annual Hours Available for Casework per Attorney FTE

The ABA public defender workload studies used a default annual hours per FTE attorney of 2,080 hours. 2,080 hours is equivalent to eight hours per day, five days per week, 52 weeks per year.  

 

The ABA used 2,080 hours per year as its default because it is conservative and virtually impossible to argue against. However, it does not account for holidays, sick leave, or vacation time. It also assumes that the attorney can spend all of their working time on client representation. It does not account for any time for staff meetings, training or continuing legal education (CLE), travel time to the jail or court, or administrative work. Realistically, spending 2,080 hours per year on case work requires an attorney consistently work far more than 40 hours per week. For this reason, other public defender workload studies calculate the hours an FTE attorney can devote to case work by subtracting time for holidays, sick leave, vacation time, travel, and other work that is not case specific.

The table below provides some examples of the Annual Hours Per FTE used in different jurisdictions.

Real-World Examples: Available Hours Per Public Defense Attorney FTE

 

Jurisdiction

Available Hours Per Attorney FTE

Source

North Carolina

1,320-1,375 hours

NCSC 2019 North Carolina Workload Study (page 25)

Colorado

1,269 hours

ABA 2017 Colorado Workload Study (page 25)

Washington State

1,650 hours

Washington State Bar Association, Standards for Indigent Defense Services, Standard 3J

 

Accounting for Vacation, Sick Leave, and Holidays

To calculate attorney FTE annual hours, the provider should first subtract the days that an FTE attorney is provided for vacation, sick leave, personal leave, etc. The fictional jurisdiction attorneys have 10 days of vacation, 10 days of sick leave, and 11 federal holidays. The below table shows an example of subtracting leave hours from the hours available per year for the fictional jurisdiction.

Accounting for Training, Administrative, and Other Work

Public defense providers may also wish to account for the time attorneys must spend on training, administrative work, and other non-casework tasks, including staff meetings, and travel time. Providers may adapt how this time is subtracted based on whether the provider has data on these time needs and the type of data the provider has.

Training Time Calculation Examples

Jurisdiction A

In Jurisdiction A, the public defense provider sends half of their attorneys to a four-day training conference each year. The provider also offers in-house trainings over lunch one day each month. Attorneys can also request permission to attend other conferences or trainings, but they do not track how often such requests are made. The provider estimates that each attorney takes 2 days or 16 hours per year for training to account for the conference.

Jurisdiction B

In Jurisdiction B, all attorneys are required to take 12 hours of CLE per year. The provider requires that attorneys take CLEs relevant to their public defense work, offers some training, and allows attorneys to take work time to complete CLEs. Jurisdiction B subtracts 12 hours for training per FTE per year.

Travel Time

Travel time is not included in the NPDWS case weights because it varies substantially by jurisdiction and provider. An attorney working in a rural regional office may need an enormous amount of time for travel, while an attorney working in a single county jurisdiction where the jail is attached to the courthouse may need very little. Additionally, travel time is often attributable to multiple cases. For example, when an attorney goes to a jail, they may visit more than one client or they may visit a client and discuss multiple cases. For this reason, travel time is commonly subtracted in determining attorney FTE hours available for casework, rather counting as case time.

Travel Time Calculation Examples

Jurisdiction A

In Jurisdiction A, the public defense provider requires attorneys to track their travel time. From this data, the provider knows that, on average, each attorney spends 115 hours per year on travel time. The provider subtracts this 115 hours from the available hours an FTE attorney has for casework each year.

Jurisdiction B

In Jurisdiction B, the provider does not track travel time. However, the provider covers three counties from a single office. The outer counties each regularly hold court two days per week, and the courthouses are both about one and half hours away from the office. Attorneys cover these courts on a rotational basis. Each attorney spends roughly 6 hours on travel during their coverage weeks, and each attorney must cover one of these courts every four weeks. The provider therefore estimates that each attorney spends approximately 78 hours per year on travel (52 weeks/4 = 13 weeks per year x 6 hours per week = 78 hours per year).

Administrative Time Calculation Examples

Jurisdiction A

In Jurisdiction B, the different divisions have different internal meeting schedules. Some meet for case review three days a week for one hour. Others have a staff meeting and one case review meeting each week. The provider estimates that most divisions devote two hours to case review each week, and one hour to team or divisional meetings. Accordingly, the provider estimates that each attorney needs three hours per week, or 156 hours per year, of administrative time.

Jurisdiction B

In Jurisdiction B, the different divisions have different internal meeting schedules. Some meet for case review three days a week for one hour. Others have a staff meeting and one case review meeting each week. The provider determines that most divisions devote two hours to case review each week, and one hour to team or divisional meetings. Accordingly, the provider estimates that each attorney needs three hours per week, or 156 hours per year, of administrative time.

The below table shows an example calculation of non-casework Time for fictional jurisdiction using the scenarios from Example 2 above in each category.

How Judges Calculate Annual Hours per FTE: 

It is noteworthy that judicial workload studies use the same concept of hours available to work on cases in a year. In judicial workload studies, this is often called a Year Value. The table below provides some examples of Year Values from judicial workload studies (Note: where originally calculated in minutes per year, the calculation has been converted to reflect hours per year).

Real-World Examples: Judicial Workload Studies

Jurisdiction

Year Value

Source

Virginia

1,175-1,290 hours

(70,506-77,427 minutes)

Supreme Court of Virginia Judicial Workload Assessment (2024)(page 21)

Texas

1,075-1,290 hours

(64,500-77,400 minutes)

Measuring Current Judicial Workload in Texas (2023)(page 12)

Yuma County, AZ

1,347 hours

(80,811 minutes)

Judicial Workload Study for the Superior Court in Yuma County, AZ(page 21).

The table below shows the complete calculation of the Annual Hours per FTE for the fictional jurisdiction.

Calculate Total Attorney FTEs Needed

To calculate the number of FTE attorneys needed to handle the projected caseload, the provider must divide total Annual Hours Needed by Annual Hours Per FTE.  The calculation of FTEs needed for the fictional jurisdiction is below. The calculation divides Annual Hours Needed (from Step 3) of 972,998 hours by Annual Hours per FTE (above) of 1,586 hours per year.

 

 

FAQs about Annual Hours per FTE (Coming Soon)

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