Mason County public-defense office warns new state caseload limits will require more attorneys and cost millions

A contracted chief public defender told Mason County commissioners on Sept. 29 that a Washington State Supreme Court order adopting RAND-based caseload standards will sharply reduce the number of felony and district-court cases an individual public defender can carry, and that complying will require hiring more attorneys and support staff.

Angela Avery, who said she is the contracted chief public defender for Mason County, summarized the new standards and the RAND study the court relied on. She said the old guideline permitted a felony public defender to handle about 150 felony cases a year but the new standard would reduce that to roughly 47 weighted felony cases per year and to about 120 district-court cases per year per attorney. "So either we take 10 years and we do it or we do it now," Avery told the commissioners when outlining options and the county's possible responses.

Avery said she used Administrative Office of the Courts filing data for Mason County (2024) and RAND's hour-estimates to calculate staffing needs. She estimated the county would need roughly five full-time felony attorneys to meet the new weighted standard and that the additional cost for those positions and benefits would be about $773,000. For district-court coverage she estimated needing the equivalent of 5.5 county attorneys, with a county cost in the roughly low- to mid-seven-figure range for salaries and benefits; at one point she summarized the county-level cost of attorney hires alone as about $1.6 million. She also warned that support staff, investigators and expert costs would be required to meet the standards.

Avery told the commission that staffing shortages already exist: "Right now, we have 3 vacancies," she said, noting a chief public defender position and a district-court attorney vacancy among them. She said hiring difficulties are statewide and that leaving the standards unimplemented risks losing institutional knowledge as senior attorneys retire.

Commissioners asked detailed questions on three topics: whether contracting with private attorneys would reduce cost and workload, how to measure and track weighted cases, and the hiring pool for new attorneys. Avery said contracting is not necessarily cheaper: at prevailing contractor rates she had billed $175 an hour this year and estimated a single life-without-parole trial could cost the county six figures if billed to contractors. She also described state-level programs and fellowship options that can place new attorneys in rural counties, but said the pool of law-school graduates willing to do public defense has contracted. The presentation and discussion repeatedly emphasized that the court's order is an unfunded mandate that counties must address whether through phased compliance or an immediate implementation plan.

What happens next: commissioners did not adopt a policy or formal motion at the briefing. Commissioners asked staff and the public defender's office to return with more detailed budget options, and to include implementation scenarios that show phased staffing, contracting and support-staff impacts.

Provenance: This article draws on the presenter's slides and remarks recorded beginning 00:18:45 and continuing through 01:03:04 in the meeting transcript; see excerpt: "So either we take 10 years and we do it or we do it now." (Angela Avery, 00:22:02).