2025/09/03 Council Agenda Packet

4 and its sub-paragraphs below, the parties will periodically review staffing in light of changes in court rule and case load in order to adjust staffing based on experience. The parties believe that they have provided sufficient capacity to ensure that, in all respects and at all times, public defense service will comply with the Standards with an adequate reserve capacity for each attorney. The RALJ Public Defender additionally agrees and promises that RALJ Public Defender will devote full effort to the performance of this Agreement and will undertake no private practice of law or other public contract that would impede its ability to perform under this Agreement or reduce the case count available to each Attorney. 2.1 Case Counts. Based upon case counts maintained by RALJ Public Defender and reviewed by the City, the Projected Case Count represents current estimates for annual case counts for all indigent cases filed by the City likely to be assigned to RALJ Public Defender. The terms “case” and “credit” shall be defined in accordance with the Washington State Supreme Court rule and the Washington Office of Public Defense guidelines. 2.2 Adjustment; Internal Allocation. As provided in the Standards, case counts may be revised upwards based upon a variety of factors. Upon the RALJ Public Defender’s request, the City shall review any particular case with the RALJ Public Defender to determine whether greater weighting should be assigned, and upward revisions shall not be unreasonably refused. The annual caseload shall be reviewed annually on or about June 30th each year. 2.3 Compensation. Except as expressly provided in Section 2.4, the cost of all infrastructure, administrative, support and systems, as well as standard overhead services necessary to comply with the established standards, are provided for in the cost per case payment provided in Section 2 above. 2.4 Payments in Addition to the Compensation. The City shall pay for the following case expenses when reasonably incurred and approved by the Court from funds available for that purpose: 2.4.1 Preauthorized Non-Routine Expenses. Non-routine case expenses requested by the RALJ Public Defender and preauthorized by order of the Court. Unless the services are performed by RALJ Public Defender’s staff or subcontractors, non-routine expenses include, but are not limited to: (i) transcripts of court proceedings; (ii) The cost of interpreters and/or Language Line services. 2.4.2 Copying Clients’ Files. The cost, if it exceeds $25, of providing one copy of a client’s or former client’s case file upon client’s or client’s appellate, post-conviction relief or habeas corpus attorney’s request, or at the request of counsel appointed to represent the client when the client has been granted a new trial. 2.5 Review and Renegotiation.