CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT

At it's September 2003 proceedings, the Judicial Conference of the United States adopted a new Criminal Justic Act (CJA) Guideline, 2.22B(4), which encourages courts to use case budgeting for any representation in which it is anticipated that the defense of an individual CJA defendant will cost in excess of $30,000 or involve more that 300 hours of attorney time (JCUS-SEP 03, p.20). To assist the court and counsel in this process, the Administrative Office of the United States Courts has developed case budgeting worksheets that isolate important categories of information, with sufficient detail, to enable the preparation of a realistic case budget, there are both detailed and summary worksheets for each of the four types of services: attorney, investigator, expert and "other."

Memo From AO dated 7/22/2008 re Case Budgeting