Because the federal constitutional right to counsel is essentially an unfunded mandate, indigent defense representation in states and localities, the venues in which most criminal prosecutions occur, is seldom funded adequately. Many defender organizations facing substantial budget cuts necessarily limit training rather than further overburden frontline attorneys. While there are some statewide public defender training programs that provide a comprehensive and coordinated training regimen to help lawyers develop into accomplished defenders, these programs are the exception. Even more scarce are underwritten training programs specifically designed for attorneys who accept court-appointed cases. As a result, in far too many regions of the country, training for both publicly-employed defenders and private counsel providing indigent defense services by court assignment or contract is grossly inadequate.
Drawing upon its proven capacity to support public defense and singular track record of providing high quality services to the entire defense bar, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) will establish a National Training Program with online technical support for indigent defense providers. NACDL will create a National Right to Counsel Working Group (Working Group) to develop and execute a coherent strategy for providing targeted training, continuing legal education and online resources to providers of indigent defense services in six jurisdictions. The primary Working Group objectives will be to: 1) identify specific training needs; 2) develop jurisdictionally specific training curricula aimed at addressing those needs; 3) recruit faculty and give targeted trainings in specific jurisdictions; 4) develop a set of best practices for providing indigent defense; 5) create online resources to help support ongoing training efforts and to disseminate training curricula that will enable other indigent defense providers to adopt best practices.
Under this objective, NACDL will bring six live two-day CLE programs to public defense practitioners, including full time institutionally employed defenders as well as part time court appointed counsel, in targeted jurisdictions.