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

Next, you must determine how many full-time equivalent (FTE) attorneys are necessary to effectively represent the clients in the projected caseload. First, you establish how many hours each FTE attorney can spend on case work ("Annual Hours per FTE"). Then you divide the annual hours of attorney time needed (from Step 3) by these annual hours per FTE. The result is the number of FTE attorneys needed for your caseload. 

Determine Annual Hours Available for Casework per Attorney FTE

The NPDWS noted that each jurisdiction or system would need to “decid[e] on a value that represents the amount of time an attorney providing public defense services would typically have available annually to handle case-related work.” NPDWS at 98. We call this the Annual Hours per FTE. This number can differ from year to year, provider to provider, and even attorney to attorney. However, most workload studies set a single default Annual Hours per FTE.

The ABA public defender workload studies used 2,080 hours as the default annual hours per attorney FTE. Other public defender workload studies calculated the Annual Hours per FTE by subtracting the time needed for leave, travel, meetings, training, and administrative tasks.

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

Real-World Examples: Annual Casework Hours Available Per 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

 

 

 

Why do the ABA workload studies use 2,080 attorney hours per year?

The ABA public defender workload studies used 2,080 hours as the default annual hours per attorney FTE. This assumes that an attorney devotes eight hours per day, five days per week, 52 weeks per year to casework.

This hours assumption is extremely conservative. It does not account for holidays, sick leave, or vacation time. It also assumes that an attorney can spend all of their working time on client representation. It does not account for staff meetings, travel time to the jail or court, administrative work, or training and continuing legal education (CLE). The ABA used 2,080 hours as the Annual Hours per FTE because it is conservative and exceeds the billable hours requirements of most large law firms. As a result, it is difficult to argue against. However, spending 2,080 hours on case work would require an attorney to work far more than 40 hours per week.

To calculate Annual Hours per FTE, you would start with the total number of attorney hours available per year (typically 2,080: 8 hours per day x 5 days per week x 52 weeks per year) and then subtract the time needed for various types of leave or other work (e.g., training and administrative tasks).  This calculation is easiest in systems with full time attorney employees, but will be different for systems that use private or contract attorneys (see FAQs below).

Vacation, Sick Leave, and Holidays

To calculate Annual Hours per FTE, you should first subtract the days that an FTE attorney is provided for vacation, sick leave, personal leave, etc. For example, in our Fictional Jurisdiction, attorneys receive 10 days of vacation, 10 days of sick leave, and 11 state holidays. The table below shows the reduction of available hours per FTE based on vacation, leave, and holidays.

 

 

Training, Administrative, and Other Non-Casework

In calculating Annual Hours per FTE, you should also account for the time attorneys spend on training, administrative work, and other non-casework tasks, including staff meetings and travel. You can use available data to determine how much time to subtract, or you can estimate this time.

Training Time Calculation Examples

Jurisdiction A

In Jurisdiction A, the public defense provider sends half of its attorneys to a four-day training conference each year. The provider also offers in-house training over lunch one day each month. While attorneys can also request permission to attend other conferences or training courses, the provider does not track how often such requests are made and granted. The provider conservatively estimates that each attorney takes an average of two days or 16 hours per year for training, accounting only for the conference (four days x 50% of attorneys).

Jurisdiction B

Jurisdiction B requires all attorneys to take 12 hours of CLE per year. The provider 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

The NPDWS standards do not include case related travel time because required travel time 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 smaller urban jurisdiction may need very little. Additionally, travel time is often attributable to multiple cases. For example, when an attorney goes to a jail, they often visit several clients, or they may visit one client to discuss multiple cases. For this reason, you should consider estimating and subtracting travel when setting your Annual Hours per FTE.

Travel Time Calculation Examples

Jurisdiction A

In Jurisdiction A, the public defense provider requires attorneys to track their travel time. From these data, the provider knows that, on average, each attorney spends 115 hours per year on travel time. The provider therefore subtracts 115 hours per attorney when calculating Annual Hours per FTE.

Jurisdiction B

In Jurisdiction B, the provider does not track travel time. The provider covers three counties from a single office. The two counties that require travel from the office each hold court two days per week. Attorneys cover these courts on a rotating basis: each attorney covers one of these courts every four weeks. Attorneys spend roughly 6 hours on travel during their coverage weeks. The provider estimates that each attorney spends approximately 78 hours per year on travel (13 coverage weeks per year x 6 hours per coverage week = 78 hours per year). The provider therefore subtracts 78 hours per attorney when calculating Annual Hours per FTE.

Administrative Time

Administrative time includes all time devoted to work that cannot be attributed to a single case. Commonly administrative time includes staff meetings, supervisory meetings, and case review meeting. 

 

Administrative Time Calculation Examples

Jurisdiction A

In Jurisdiction A, the provider is a small public defender office that meets weekly to review cases and discuss administrative matters. The provider estimates that this meeting lasts, on average, one and half hours each week. The provider therefore calculates that each attorney needs 78 hours (1.5 hours/week x 52 weeks) for administrative time.

Jurisdiction B

In Jurisdiction B, the public defender is office has several divisions, each with their own meeting schedule. Some divisions meet for case review three days per week for one hour. Others hold one 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 spends three hours per week, or 156 hours per year, doing administrative work.

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 attorney FTEs Needed to handle the projected caseload you must divide the Annual Hours Needed by the Annual Hours per FTE. 

 

 

The calculation of FTEs Needed for the Fictional Jurisdiction appears below. The calculation divides Annual Hours Needed (from Step 3) of 972,998 hours by Annual Casework Hours per FTE (above) of 1,586 hours per year.

 

 

FAQs about Annual Hours per FTE (Coming Soon)

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