Public defender case software that keeps a live count of every open file
Public defender case management is the work of tracking assigned criminal cases from arraignment through disposition: charges, custody status, court settings, discovery received, motions filed and outcome. The duty comes from Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, decided in 1963. Caseloads are still measured against the 1973 standard of 150 felonies or 400 misdemeanors per attorney per year. Neurobird tracks assignment, discovery and settings in one place so the count is always current.
Neurobird Public Defender Case in short
- Assign cases at arraignment and keep a running open count per attorney
- Log every discovery production with date received, source, page count and reviewer
- Track the next setting for every case so nothing is discovered on the calendar the morning of
- 1963 Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, held that states must provide counsel to defendants who cannot afford it, which is where the whole obligation starts. Cornell Legal Information Institute
- 150 Felony cases per attorney per year under the 1973 National Advisory Commission standard, the figure most state offices are still measured against. A 2023 national study concluded it is far too high. National Center for State Courts, workload planning
- Pricing runs 60 to 260 US dollars per month across 3 tiers. Early access is free.
What public defender offices actually deal with
Why it stays broken
Court systems are built for the court, not for defence. So the office rebuilds its own numbers by hand: 94 federal districts and thousands of state courts each export something different, and none of them tell you what one attorney is carrying this week.
One felony file can now carry 400 pages of paper and 30 hours of body camera video.
Public defender programs in the 13 states with death penalty statutes spent a combined $11.3 million providing capital case representation in 2007.
Neurobird Public Defender Case Client Portal
Capture the assignment once at arraignment, then let discovery, settings and disposition attach to it. The caseload count stops being an annual estimate.
- 1Assign cases at arraignment and keep a running open count per attorney
- 2Log every discovery production with date received, source, page count and reviewer
- 3Track the next setting for every case so nothing is discovered on the calendar the morning of
- 4Record dispositions in a form your funder and your court can actually read
What changes with Neurobird Public Defender Case?
The same work, read left to right: how it runs today, and how it runs once the record is in one place.
| Today | With Neurobird Public Defender Case |
|---|---|
| Assignment happens at arraignment and the file exists as a paper folder before anybody types it anywhere | Assign cases at arraignment and keep a running open count per attorney |
| Discovery arrives in batches, on discs, by portal and by email, and nobody can say what was received or when it was reviewed | Log every discovery production with date received, source, page count and reviewer |
| Nobody can answer how many open felonies an attorney is carrying today without counting folders | Track the next setting for every case so nothing is discovered on the calendar the morning of |
Who is this for?
Same duty, three different office shapes.
You have 4 attorneys and no analyst
Nobody has time to build a caseload report. You need the count to fall out of the work you already do at arraignment.
You run units by charge type
Felony, misdemeanor and juvenile units carry different loads against different standards. You need one number per unit that survives a budget hearing.
You oversee many offices
Contract counsel, conflict counsel and staff offices all report differently. You need one definition of an open case across all of them.
The caseload, as your office would run it
A working preview. Tick an item to move it through the case.
- Discovery loggedpending
- Disposition recordedpending
- Case assignedpending
- Motions filedpending
Advance a step to see what the client sees.
What indigent defense actually requires
Useful if you are staffing an office or defending a caseload number. Each source links out.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, held that states must provide counsel to defendants who cannot afford it, which is where the whole obligation starts.
Cornell Legal Information InstituteFelony cases per attorney per year under the 1973 National Advisory Commission standard, the figure most state offices are still measured against. A 2023 national study concluded it is far too high.
National Center for State Courts, workload planningMisdemeanor cases per attorney per year under the same 1973 standard, set long before body camera video and phone extractions existed.
National Center for State Courts, workload planningFederal judicial districts, each with its own defender arrangement, on top of state and county systems that all report differently.
US Courts, Defender ServicesYear of the last full national census of state public defender programs, which is why current office level workload data is so thin.
Bureau of Justice StatisticsHow does Neurobird Public Defender Case work?
Assign at arraignment
Case number, top charge, custody status and attorney captured in one screen, in court, on a phone.
Log every production
Each discovery batch records date received, source, page or file count and who reviewed it, so the record survives a later challenge.
Watch the load
Open counts per attorney update as cases close, measured against the 150 and 400 standards rather than guessed at.
Public defender case software questions, answered
Key terms
- What is public defender case management?
- Public defender case management is the work of tracking assigned criminal cases from arraignment through disposition: charges, custody status, court settings, discovery received, motions filed, investigation tasks and outcome. It is different from a private firm matter system because assignment is involuntary, caseloads are capped by standards, and the client is often in custody.
- What is a reasonable felony caseload for one attorney?
- The 1973 National Advisory Commission standard is still the number most offices are measured against: 150 felonies or 400 misdemeanors per attorney per year. A 2023 national workload study concluded those 1973 figures were far too high for modern case complexity, particularly with digital discovery.
Why does discovery tracking matter so much?
Because a missed disclosure is a claim of ineffective assistance later. Modern discovery includes body camera video, cell phone extractions and lab reports arriving over months, so the office needs a dated record of what came in, from whom, and who reviewed it.
Does this replace the court case management system?
No. The court runs its own docket. This is the office side: your assignments, your discovery log, your investigation tasks and your caseload counts, none of which the court system tracks for you.
Is client data kept confidential?
Everything here is attorney work product and privileged client information. Access is per user and per case, and the audit trail records who opened what.
Why we are building this
Defender offices are asked to prove workload with numbers they were never given the tools to collect. The court system tracks the docket, not the defence, so every caseload figure is reconstructed by hand from folders.
That matters because the 1973 standard of 150 felonies is the number funding decisions still turn on, and a 2023 national study says it was too high even then. You cannot argue that without your own data.
We would rather build this with people who carry the caseload. Tell us how your office actually tracks assignment and discovery, and where we have got it wrong.
Where the requirement comes from
The case law, the standards and the public data behind indigent defense.
- Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 The 1963 decision requiring states to provide counsel to defendants who cannot afford it.
- Bureau of Justice Statistics, indigent defense Federal statistics topic page on public defence systems, funding and caseloads.
- National Center for State Courts, workload planning How court and defender workload studies are built, including the caseload standards debate.
- US Courts, Defender Services How appointed counsel is organised across the 94 federal judicial districts.
How much does Neurobird Public Defender Case cost?
Priced per attorney seat because caseload is per pair of hands. Cases, investigators and support staff are unlimited on every tier.
- Assignment intake
- Custody and charge tracking
- Court setting calendar
- Open caseload count
- Email support
- Everything in Small office
- Discovery production log
- Investigator task queue
- Caseload against 150 and 400 standards
- Named contact
- Everything in County defender
- Multi office roll up
- Conflict checking
- Funder and legislative reporting
- Onboarding included
Get free early access
If you run a defender office, tell us how assignment and discovery are tracked today and where it breaks.
Straight answer on where this is: In development. Early access gets the working preview, a say in what ships first, and early access pricing. It does not get you a login today.
Prefer email? Write to office@neurobird.com and a person will reply. No autoresponder.