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Public Defense Contract Terms

Contracts for 2023 - 2025

Linked here are the approved contract terms for the 2023/2025 contracts. 

  1. Criminal Contract Terms
  2. Juvenile Contract Terms
  3. PCRP Contract Terms
  4. PCRP Independent Case Manager Contract Terms
  5. PCRP Case Manager In-House Contract Terms

2023 - 2025 Contracts FAQ

Contracted Qualification Level signifies the specific or most serious level of cases for which an attorney is both qualified and obligated to accept appointment to. An attorney will only be paid based on the types of cases they are obligated to take under contract, which may or may not be all case types for which they are certified by OPDS. For example, if a murder-qualified attorney only wishes to take minor felony and misdemeanor appointments, they will only be paid at the minor felony rate.

An attorney wishing to increase their qualification should first check the Qualification Standards and then fill out and submit an Attorney Certification form and copy the contract administrator.  Once approved, an OPDS program analyst will work with the contract administrator regarding any needed contract amendments.  ​

Yes. The 2023-25 contracts include an additional 5% for administration. OPDC cannot direct contract administrators, who are independent contractors, how to distribute funds once paid out.

In the 2022-23 contracts, the PDSC dispensed with the term “full-time equivalent" or “FTE" in favor of the term “Maximum Attorney Caseload" or “MAC."  That change posed challenges over the last year, which led to the agency reintroducing the term “FTE" or “FTE Attorney" in the 2023-25 contract terms while retaining the term “MAC."  An easy way to understand the interaction of these two terms is that “FTE" or “FTE Attorney" refers to the attorney and the percentage of their work time they commit to public defense, and “MAC" refers to the associated limit on the number of cases that attorney can take under contract. 

The 2023-25 criminal and non-PCRP juvenile contracts continue the annual caseload limits established in the 2022-23 contract. These were developed with reference to caseload standards from New York and Washington and the American Bar Association’s The Oregon Project: An Analysis of Public Defense Attorney Workloads. Below are the maximum number of cases a 1.0 FTE attorney may be assigned annually if they are only assigned one case type. For mixed caseloads, attorneys should use the case weights to add up to a maximum of 300 weighted cases per 1.0 FTE per year.

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New in the 2023-25 contracts is the requirement that attorneys spread their caseload evenly throughout the year, taking no more than roughly 1/12 annual MAC every month. A 1.0 FTE attorney would therefore aim to take approximately 25 weighted cases every month. The exception to this is for Murder and JLaw cases, which are weighted 50 and therefore more than 1/12 of annual MAC. ​

​No​.  The annual MAC remains 300 weighted cases and the monthly MAC remains 25 weighted cases.


Annual Variance:  OPDS is committed to ensuring that lawyers have caseloads that allow them adequate time to provide constitutionally competent and effective legal representation for their clients.  We recognize that some lawyers have capacity to represent more than 300 weighted misdemeanors annually, and some lawyers have less capacity.  A lawyer’s capacity is impacted by regional differences and the lawyers own experience and resources.  OPDS remains committed to reducing caseloads across the state and is working on promulgating guidance for the annual variance.


Monthly Variance: Prorating the MAC on a monthly basis is intended to protect attorneys from systemic pressures to accept appointment in a high number of cases early in the contract period.  Allowing a contract attorney to exceed the contracted MAC by 15% each month is intended to allow some flexibility.  For example, a murder case is the weighted equivalent of 50 misdemeanors, therefore a contractor who accepts appointment on a murder case will necessarily exceed their weighted MAC in a month.  Some variation is inevitable.  However, OPDS seeks to avoid a long-term variance.  Therefore, if a contractor’s caseload is at 115% of their contracted MAC for three or more months, they should contact their OPDS Program Analyst to determine how to address the circumstances to bring the caseloads within the contracted MAC or adjust the contract. 

Contract administrators who are interested in adding Attorney FTE to their contract should contact their program analyst with this request.

Yes.  Since the beginning of OJD’s Unrepresented Dashboard, contracted providers have accepted appointments for unrepresented persons on OJD’s list under their contracts as capacity allowed. Jurisdictions may vary in how they prioritize and facilitate case assignment.