Utah Indigent Defense Commission: county lacks attorneys to meet new ABA caseload standards

Matt Barraza, Executive Director of the Utah Indigent Defense Commission (IDC), and Leslie Howitt, the IDC’s data and research analyst, briefed the Utah County Board of Commissioners on Nov. 1 about new American Bar Association caseload standards and a prior 2019 Utah study that corroborates the national findings.

Howitt said the IDC used Fiscal Year 2023 appointed‑case counts and category‑hour multipliers to estimate attorney needs for district court work in Utah County. That calculation produced 101,985 attorney hours — roughly the equivalent of 55 full‑time attorneys working district court appointments — and did not include some probation‑violation case counts missing from court data. Using county public defender agency estimates for those probation matters would add roughly 12 more attorneys. Howitt also reported a recent surge in mid‑ and low‑level felonies: extrapolating recent quarter data could add 27 attorneys to cover the increase, bringing the county total to about 82 attorneys under the national standards.

Howitt clarified that those figures reflect court‑appointed cases only, not every prosecution in the county. Barraza said the 1973 standards previously used nationwide did not account for case type or modern discovery volumes (dashcam and cell phone material), and that the new ABA standards provide more precise category‑level guidance.

Why it matters: The presenters said Utah’s existing statewide public defender staffing (about 130 full‑time attorney equivalents in district court statewide, per IDC figures) is far below what the ABA and Utah study would recommend; Howitt said statewide adoption would require roughly three times the number of attorneys currently working in district court.

Local next steps: The IDC is available for follow‑up questions and to supply data; commissioners asked clarifying questions about which cases were included and how the numbers were calculated. The presentation did not propose an immediate county funding decision; it provided a data baseline for future budget or policy choices.

Quote: "Using the Utah standards...approximately 55 full‑time attorneys would be needed in Utah County just to work on district court," Howitt said. "If we account for recent increases in mid‑level felonies, that number could rise to about 82."