In the United States, people facing criminal charges are afforded the constitutional right to a “speedy and public trial . . . and to have the Assistance of Counsel for [their] defense.”[1] In an adversarial system, ensuring indigent defendants receive competent counsel ensures procedural protections for the accused and the solidity and finality of guilty verdicts. However, funding disparities between prosecutors’ offices and public defenders’ offices perpetuate a systemic imbalance of resources.[2] Reports show that prosecutors “receive approximately 25-35% more funding per case” when compared with public defenders,[3] and prosecutors’ workloads tend to be lower while their salaries tend to be higher.[4] Public defenders recognize the disparate impacts this resource disparity has on their highest-need clients who are disproportionately unhoused, non-white, and low-income.[5] What follows is a written interview, edited minimally for clarity, with Benjamin Dolder, Assistant Public Defender with the Prince William County Public Defender’s Office in Virginia, interspersed with commentary and context from the author.[6]

What brought you to public defense work? Were you always planning on joining a public defense practice, or did it come unexpectedly?

I have wanted to join a PD [public defense] office since I started law school. I find the work interesting and the company wonderful. I also care about the mission, and doing something that I care about has always been important to me.

What is the workload like in your office amongst you and your colleagues?

The workload is high. I am sitting at around 170 cases right now, I’ve been as high as 200. It makes it very hard to do anything but prepare for the next day. We undoubtedly miss things and have to tactically cut corners.

     A large caseload is a vexing problem in public defense offices around the country.[7] In 1973, the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals (NAC) suggested caseload limits that have since been declaimed as inadequate, not evidence-based, and far too high to allow for quality representation.[8] Despite the fact that Dolder’s stated caseload is well-under the NAC standards, he notes that he is still under time pressure to give each case its due attention—cutting corners in order to meet the demand; this is emblematic of the problems Burkhart has noted with the NAC standards.[9] These caseloads prevent public defenders from pursuing their clients’ every interest or tactical advantage.  More recent workload studies published by the ABA and other national groups studied time spent on a given task (misdemeanor case, felony case, appeal, etc.), and a Delphi panel surveying twenty to fifty experts from Missouri estimated the time experts in criminal defense thought was reasonably required to perform a given task with reasonable effectiveness.[10] Comparing the two, Burkhart revealed a significant gap between actual hours worked and hours believed to be required to be reasonably effective on nearly every task related to criminal defense.[11]

Managers should adhere to professional responsibility standards and updated evidence-based standards. The National Public Defense Workload Study identified the number of hours required for a particular offense to receive adequate representation and compared it to the annual caseload standard, concluding that workloads should be substantially cut back in order to accommodate equitable representation.[12]

Additional actions range from implementing an individualized and collective practice of refusing new cases when a public defender is at their limit,[13] to working with prosecutors to streamline early diversion or dismissal policies or practices.[14] Regardless of the solution, experts agree that ballooning workloads negatively impact the individual rights of indigent defendants and compromise the ethical obligations of those working in public defense.[15] A systemic solution identified by new studies emphasizes funding should be increased and hiring incentivized so that public defenders can dedicate an average of thirty-five hours to each felony case and twenty-two hours to each misdemeanor.[16] Alternatively, States that cannot fulfill their obligation to provide adequate counsel for every defendant should dismiss cases where counsel is unable to be provided as argued for in a 2022 suit in Oregon.[17] Additional reforms are helpful, but time and caseload management remain the primary focus of many contemporary studies.

What is the funding model used for your PD office? Is it a contractual relationship with your jurisdiction or in-house with your municipality? How does it impact you and your practice?

We have a state-wide agency called the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission that pays our salary. It’s how every office in Virginia works. We also get a local stipend from Prince William County. I’m not sure how it impacts our practice, at my level it doesn’t do very much besides motivate me to keep working.

     Funding models differ between prosecutors’ offices and public defenders’, and disparity in resources abounds. While prosecutors benefit from the investigations of police departments, laboratory work, an army of support staff, and state funding, public defenders must do the investigative and administrative work themselves all while enjoying smaller salaries and less overall budget than their prosecutor colleagues.[18] In Indiana, the county holds responsibility for funding public defender services through the county auditor and requires certain standards be met in order to receive those funds, but prosecutors’ budget is directly funded by the state.[19] In at least one jurisdiction in Virginia, the discrepancy in funding has been at least partially addressed by Virginia Beach, where the City Council “expressed how [it] was ‘extraordinarily surprised’ to see a $20,000 disparity between prosecutor and public defender salaries,”[20] and add $500,000 to the public defender’s annual budget.[21] The increase was still $400,000 short from allowing for total parity between starting prosecutors and starting defenders, and the chief public defender in that office vowed to continue to lobby for pay parity.[22]

 

How much turnover is there in your office? Who and how does your office recruit new attorneys?

Turnover is high. We probably lose 4 people a year out of an office of approximately 23 attorneys. Most replacements come fresh out of law school and are hired by our leadership team.

     High turnover results from lower salaries and culminates in younger defense teams with less experience managing a case, let alone the caseloads public defenders’ offices have come to be familiar with.[23] High turnover rates and slow replacement have plagued offices for decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the issue:[24] Hundreds of public defenders left their positions during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, and public defenders in Oregon sued the state to either fulfill its legal obligation to provide counsel to all defendants or dismiss cases where counsel cannot be appointed.[25] Retention efforts, whether that be lowering caseloads through additional hires and/or raising salaries, require an injection of additional funding in order to maintain.[26] The situation evinces the image of a snowball rolling downhill, where public defenders’ offices lose more and more attorneys due to low salaries, their remaining attorneys face higher and higher caseloads, and in turn, are further inspired to seek their own alternatives—a vicious cycle emerges where there are no winners, and indigent defendants lose out on their constitutionally mandated protections.

What are the biggest issues facing your office? Do you notice any larger trends across the PD field that impact your clients?

A combination of turnover and funding disparities means the Commonwealth [prosecutor’s] office has almost three times as many attorneys. It is hard to keep up. Each of their attorneys has far fewer cases than us, which is especially problematic in a job where sometimes your best legal strategy is to work the state to death.

     While acknowledging that it is not the sole reason for public defense caseload bloat, prosecutors play a significant role in bloating public defender caseloads due to their discretion over filing charges and plea bargaining. Because most charges result in guilty verdicts or guilty pleas and because of mandatory minimum sentencing statutes, prosecutors not only “predetermine” the outcome of cases they charge, but also the sentencing options available to the court.[27] Prosecutors should explore alternatives to criminal charges, like pretrial diversion for minor and non-violent offenses and restorative justice, wherever possible.[28] Otherwise, prosecutors run the risk of overcharging and contributing to workloads that make their public defender colleagues less able to competently represent each and every client, unbalancing the adversary system, and weakening the criminal justice process for all. Such representation requires time and effort to “rigorously examine the [state’s] evidence,” investigate and interview every witness for a case going to trial, and researching alternative theories to the state’s.[29] Time and effort are in short supply when one is juggling hundreds of cases, each with a different disposition, each with its own stakes, each with a life hanging in the balance. Some misdemeanors may only require minimal research before reaching a plea bargain, but charges that carry sentences of mandatory life without parole can take upwards of 286 hours of labor on the part of the defense counsel;[30] that is equivalent to over seven full, five-day workweeks, and it will most certainly never be the only case a defender is handling at any given time.

Indigent defendants rely heavily on PDs for vigorous representation during what may be the worst times in their lives. How do you balance your own workload and the needs of your clients?

There is no perfect way to balance it. We have too much work to do it all effectively, and there is always more to do. We definitely have too much work to do it all effectively and have a normal work/life balance. We prioritize what matters most in each case and do what we can. It can be emotionally difficult to know there is more to do and not doing it.

     The mental toll that overworked public defenders face is well known. Offices around the country have focused on self-care and mental health solutions for their attorneys.[31] These solutions, while well-intentioned, are not systemic in nature; while they may support individual attorneys and help address some of the worst side-effects of a usually thankless position, in-house counseling and mental-health support does little to create a lasting, positive change in the status quo. As in other careers and realms of work, these methods are only successful when paired with systemic changes that create a sustainable workplace—whether that be doing away with toxic practices or creating a workload more in-line with individual workers’ ability.[32] For public defenders, this means allowing for an average of thirty-five hours to each felony case and twenty-two hours to each misdemeanor[33]—a recommendation that is clearly out of step with previous caseload guidelines.

Do you find certain demographics rely more heavily on PD offices in your jurisdiction? Do you notice disparities across the different kinds of cases that come across your desk?

Race, obviously class, housed status, all of that is heavily related to our client base. Huge disparities within our clients too, nobody is really the same. People have an image of a public defense client, but almost anyone without a job or with a low paying job can be classified as indigent, so we get all kinds.[34]

     In the United States, poverty disproportionately affects people of color.[35] The pervasion of poverty among minority communities collides with a historically discriminatory justice system, creating a disproportionate number of indigent defendants of color.[36] “Racial minorities are being disparately disadvantaged by ineffective counsel because they are disproportionately the clients of public defenders.”[37] This is not for a lack of zeal on the part of the public defenders but rather an outgrowth of the systemic underfunding and overworking of their offices, forcing public defenders to spread themselves thin and preventing them from devoting the necessary time to each case they are assigned. Unfortunately, this only serves to compound the inequities faced by people of color in the justice system.

How often do you find yourself making personal sacrifices to responsibly serve your clients’ needs?

Often. This job demands your time and emotional bandwidth.

     Massive workloads, high turnover rates, and lower-than-average pay (especially as compared to prosecutors)[38] are serious roadblocks to parity in criminal representation. These problems are further compounded by a racialized criminal justice system and historic income inequality in the United States.[39] A new approach is necessary. Lawyers are bound by constitutional, ethical, and moral demands to provide adequate, robust representation for their clients. The availability of such counsel should not depend on an individual’s ability to pay or the zip code in which they live. We can begin to address the problems associated with overburdened public defenders’ offices through a combination of radical self- and collective advocacy from public defenders,[40] increased funding to support more hires (and higher salaries) in under-staffed offices, retention models for high performers at risk of burnout, and public policies that limit caseloads and support earlier and more frequent diversion or dismissal. Only then will indigent defendants receive the kind of representation mandated by the United States Constitution.[41]

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Footnotes

[1] U.S. Const. amend. VI (emphasis added).

[2] See Martin Guggenheim, The People’s Right to a Well-Funded Indigent Defender System, 36 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change 395, 448–49 (2012); see also Heather Baxter, Too Many Clients, Too Little Time: How States are Forcing Public Defenders to Violate their Ethical Obligations, 25 Fed. Sent. R. 91, 91 (2012).

[3] Baxter, supra note 2, at 91.

[4] Guggenheim, supra note 2, at 448.

[5] See Race and Public Defense, NACDL (Jan. 4, 2026 4:50 PM), https://www.nacdl.org/Content/Racial-Disparity-and-Public-Defense [https://perma.cc/63Y2-GDPB]; Public Defender Caseloads and Ineffective Assistance Counsel Claims, NAACP (Jan. 4, 2026), https://naacp.org/resources/public-defender-caseloads-and-ineffective-assistance-counsel-claims [https://perma.cc/6V4N-SSMY].

[6] Email Interview with Benjamin Dolder, Assistant Public Defender, Prince William County Public Defender’s Office (Nov. 19, 2025).

[7] See Lisa C. Wood, Daniel T. Goyette, & Geoffrey T. Burkhart, Meet-and-Plead: The Inevitable Consequences of Crushing Defender Workloads, Litigation, Winter 2016, at 20; Geoffrey T. Burkhart, How to Leverage Public Defense Workload Studies, 14 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 403, 403 (2017) (“Crushing caseloads are perhaps the most vexing problem facing American public defense. Attorneys saddled with hundreds or thousands of cases per year must jettison core legal tasks—client communication, investigation, legal research—in violation of constitutional and ethical duties. As a result, clients, who have a right to effective, ethical counsel, receive only nominal representation.”).

[8] Burkhart, supra note 7, at 412–13 (Caseloads are recommended to be capped at the following levels per year: 150 felony cases, 400 misdemeanors, 200 juvenile cases, 200 mental health cases, and 25 appeals—per attorney).

[9] Id. at 413 (“(1) The NAC Standards are more than 40 years old and are not reflective of contemporary public defense, including the need to research collateral consequences; 2) The NAC Standards are not evidence-based; 3) Experientially, 150 felony cases per attorney per year, for instance, is too high to provide quality representation; and 4) The NAC Standards’ origins are murky.”); Id. at 418-19 (“[A]n expert panel’s opinion [can] be tainted by the results of a time study and time sufficiency survey. They take as their starting point what is, not what should be. It is unimaginable, for instance, that an attorney could meet his or her constitutional and ethical duties (as described in Section II) in each case when he or she carries 414 cases per year, as was the result in New Mexico.”).

[10] Id. at 420–21.

[11] Id. at 422 (Previous time studies showed that public defenders reported working 84.5 hours on a given homicide case, 8.7 on an A/B class felony, and 25.6 hours on a sex felony, for example. Expert criminal defense practitioners, using the Delphi method outlined in the article, contended a competent attorney would need, on average, 106.6 hours for a homicide case, 47.6 for a class A or B felony, and 63.8 for a sex felony. The expert recommendations garnered from the Delphi panel are clearly much higher than the amount of time public defenders have been able to devote to each case.).

[12] Nat’l Assoc. for Public Defense, NAPD Policy Statement on Workloads 9 (2024), https://publicdefenders.us/app/uploads/2024/03/NAPD-Policy-Statement-on-Workloads-2024.pdf [https://perma.cc/V9CE-WVU8].

[13] See Stephen F. Hanlon, Case Refusal: A Duty for a Public Defender and a Remedy for All of a Public Defender’s Clients, 51 Ind. L. Rev. 59, 70–72 (2018).

[14] See Irene Oritseweyinmi Joe, Regulating Mass Prosecution, 53 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1175, 1241–46 (2020).

[15] See generally id., at 1200–11; Hanlon, supra note 13, at 59–62; Burkhart, supra note 7, at 413.

[16] See Debra Cassens Weiss, In ‘Watershed Moment,’ Report Recommends New Guidelines for Public Defender Caseloads, ABA Journal, (Sept. 13, 2023, 2:24 PM CDT), https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/in-watershed-moment-report-recommends-new-guidelines-for-public-defender-caseloads [https://perma.cc/UZ3Y-CXTJ].

[17] Erika Bolstad, Public Defenders Were Scarce Before COVID. It’s Much Worse Now., Stateline (Jun. 21, 2022 12:00AM) https://stateline.org/2022/06/21/public-defenders-were-scarce-before-covid-its-much-worse-now/.

[18] Carrie Dvorak Brennan, The Public Defender System: A Comparative Assessment, 25 Ind. Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 237, 243–44 (2015).

[19] Id. at 244.

[20] Jenny Roberts, Defense Lawyering in the Progressive Prosecution Era, 109 Cornell L. Rev. 1067, 1140 (2024).

[21] VB Budget Helps Narrow Pay Gap Between Public Defenders, Prosecutors, Wavy (May 21, 2021) https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/virginia-beach/vb-budget-helps-narrow-pay-gap-between-public-defenders-proescutors/ [https://perma.cc/SUN5-C3S4].

[22] Id. (Prior to the budget increase, starting salaries for prosecutors were $70,000 while public defenders only started around $50,000. With the new budget increase, starting public defenders may be able to be offered as much as $60,000—leaving in place a disparity.)

[23] Richard C. Goemann, First You Cripple Public Defense: Musings on How Policymakers Dismantle the Adversarial System in Criminal Cases, 9 Loy. J. Pub. Int. L. 239, 244 (2008) (Footnote 27: “The high turnover of defenders requires the constant use of younger lawyers (who are, of course, the least efficient in the office because they are learning) and a continual cycle of training new lawyers, having them leave, and then training another batch. Taxpayer money is used to train young lawyers, but the taxpayers never get the benefit of their training because the lawyers leave and take their training with them into private practice.”)

[24] See Jessica A. Harrison, How the Pandemic Altered the Criminal Defense Landscape, 66 Advocate 16, 17 (2023).

[25] See Bolstad, suopra note 17.

[26] Id.

[27] Angela J. Davis, Prosecution and Race: The Power and Privilege of Discretion, 67 Fordham L. Rev. 13, 21–23 (1998).

[28] See Brennan, supra note 18, at 250.

[29] Defensive Stategies: The Role of the Public Defenders Explained, Advocates for the Voiceless, https://advocatesforthevoiceless.org/blog/defensive-strategies-the-role-of-public-defenders-explained/ [https://perma.cc/2RE5-KCRA] (Mar.27, 2026 2:45 PM).

[30] See Weiss supra note 16.

[31] Beatrice Ferguson, The Relentless Mental Toll of Public Defense, Slate (Jan. 4, 2026 6:16 PM), https://slate.com/technology/2023/01/public-defender-mental-health-trauma.html [https://perma.cc/QL2A-63FR].

[32] Addressing employee burnout: Are you solving the right problem?, McKinsey Health Inst. (Jan. 5, 2026 9:56 AM), https://www.mckinsey.com/mhi/our-insights/addressing-employee-burnout-are-you-solving-the-right-problem [https://perma.cc/7FGF-8CWQ].

[33] Weiss, supra note 16.

[34] See Public Defender Caseloads and Ineffective Assistance Counsel Claims, supra note 2 (“Racial and ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately because they are accused of crimes at an excessive rate due to the language barriers and are among those who rely heavily on public defenders. In fact, at last count, . . . African Americans and Latinos in state prisons relied [more heavily] on public defenders or assigned counsel compared to White American inmates. Similarly, in the federal system, African Americans were more likely to have public defenders than White Americans.”).

[35] Rebecca Marcus, Racism in Our Courts: The Underfunding of Public Defenders and Its Disproportionate Impact Upon Racial Minorities, 22 Hastings Const. L.Q. 219, 234 (1994). (“African-Americans comprised only about 12% of the entire U.S. population in 1991,113 but they comprised 30.4% of the families living below the poverty line. While Hispanics composed approximately 9% of the U.S. population, they accounted for 26.5% of the families living below the poverty line. Asians and Pacific Islanders made up 3% of those living in the United States, yet they accounted for 13.8% of those living below the poverty line. These statistics are in stark contrast with the fact that whites comprise about 80% of the U.S. population, but account for only 8.8% of the families living below the poverty line.” (Internal citations omitted.))

[36] Id. at 240–43.

[37] Id. at 252.

[38] Public defender salary in United States, Indeed (last accessed Jan. 4, 2026), https://www.indeed.com/career/public-defender/salaries; Attorney yearly salaries in the United States at Office of the Prosecuting Attorney, Indeed (last accessed Jan. 4, 2026), https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Office-of-the-Prosecuting-Attorney/salaries/Attorney.

[39] Criminal Justice Fact Sheet, NAACP, https://naacp.org/resources/criminal-justice-fact-sheet [https://perma.cc/2LFT-QS9T]; Income Inequality in the United States, inequality.org, https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/ [https://perma.cc/2SFU-NT2N].

[40] By crafting legal arguments to refuse further cases on the basis of adequate representation, public defenders can raise the salience of the overworked nature of their offices and build legal precedent for recognizing its impact on defendants’ right to zealous defense. See Burkhart, supra note 7, at 428–29; Baxter, supra note 2, at 96–97.

[41] See Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).