The Midnight Ride (Wikimedia Commons public domain)

CA3 is advertising to hire a circuit case-budgeting attorney. (So are CA4, CA7 & CA8, and CA10. Update: CA1, too.)

CA3’s job listing says the case budgeting attorney will

work with Third Circuit committees, district court judges, magistrate judges, and Criminal Justice Act (CJA) panel attorneys to develop budgets and review budgets of criminal mega-cases and death penalty cases. Specifically, in conjunction with counsel and the assigned judge, the Circuit Case Budgeting Attorney will assist in preparation of budgets that address attorney and paralegal time, experts, investigation, and other case costs.

My two cents: case budgets sound sensible, but in practice they are a disaster. Most federal judges have no earthly idea how many hours are needed to provide competent representation in a capital case, and that’s likely to be doubly true in circuits like ours where CHUs do most of it. I’ve experienced capital case budgets in other circuits, and it was unpleasant indeed. For many indigent capital and multi-defendant litigants, case-budgeting will mean deep funding cuts. And over time this will further dry up the already shallow pool of competent CA3 lawyers doing this work.

After the British invaded, Washington’s army suffered a hard winter at Valley Forge: “Some men had no shoes, no pants, no blankets. Weeks passed when there was no meat and men were reduced to boiling their shoes and eating them. The wintry winds penetrated the tattered tents that were at first the only shelter.”

The budgets are coming — boiled shoes and tattered tents for CJA defense are coming too.