Indigent defense compliance and case management
Built for public defense.
Not adapted to it.
Law office software is built to run a firm that sells its time. Public defense runs on a court day: a docket in the morning, screenings before arraignment, counsel appointed before the judge takes the bench, and a set of standards to answer to at the end of the quarter.
First Appearance follows that day from the docket to the report. It does what commercial practice software does, and the compliance numbers fall out of the work instead of being reconstructed later.
21
Quarterly figures
Measured from the work, each with the case list behind it.
0
Spreadsheets to reconcile
One record, read many ways, rather than four lists that drift apart.
12
Month rolling caseload
The cap is any twelve months in a row, so it is counted that way, month by month.
Every
Table sealed by unit
Each county's records are walled off in the database itself, not just hidden by the screens.
Why not a law office system
A firm and a defender office are different businesses
Commercial practice software can be bent toward public defense, and offices do it. The result is a system that tracks the wrong things well and the right things by hand. First Appearance starts from the work itself.
| Built for a private firm | Built for indigent defense | |
|---|---|---|
| Who the client is | Somebody who hired the firm and pays it. | Somebody the court appointed counsel for, after a finding that they cannot afford it. |
| Where a case starts | A consultation and an engagement letter. | A docket, a jail roster, and an arraignment that morning. |
| How the money works | Retainers, trust accounts, and bills to the client. | Time billed to a funding unit at rates set by case category, approved and invoiced by period. |
| What gets checked first | Conflicts with other clients. | Indigency, and whether an attorney who already had this person should be offered the case again. |
| What workload means | Hours the firm can bill. | A caseload cap per attorney, counted over a rolling year, across every county they take work from. |
| What gets reported | Revenue, realization, and collections. | Standards compliance: interviews, appointments, timing, and caseloads, each figure with its cases behind it. |
Nothing given up
Everything you expect from practice software
Choosing a system built for public defense does not mean going without the conveniences of a commercial one. The everyday tools are all here, and each one is shaped around appointed work.
The side-by-side comparison- Matters with notes, tasks, and documents
- Calendar that syncs to Outlook, Google, and Apple
- Time entry and billing
- Approval and invoicing
- Documents generated from templates
- Court forms filled in for you
- Signatures captured on screen
- Search from every screen
- Email summaries and notices
- Roles and permissions
- Two-factor sign-in
- A full change history
The court day
Built around how the work actually runs
01
Docket
Enter a whole docket at once. Defendants are matched against prior cases, and a person confirms every link before anything saves.
02
Jail roster
Work down the roster marking custody or clearing it, which the screening then weighs.
03
Charges
Search a charge catalog carrying statute, class, and penalty. The case category forms as you go.
04
Interview
Income against the poverty guideline, assets against what counsel costs locally, and a recommendation that shows its reasoning.
05
Appointment
Assign counsel with each attorney's share of their cap in view. An attorney who already had the client is offered first.
06
Courtroom
Record what happened by hearing type, and the next date is scheduled from the outcome.
07
Case file
Court dates, custody, bond, and screening on one timeline, with notes, time, documents, tasks, and the disposition and sentence.
08
Substitution
Counsel changes for the whole case or from that day forward. Work already done stays with the attorney who did it.
09
End of day
One sheet per attorney, printed or emailed, with only their own cases on it.
10
Billing
Time entered from a grid or from the case file. Rates come from the case category.
11
Invoices
Approve submitted time, then raise an invoice with a page for every case billed.
12
Reporting
More than twenty reports on compliance, workload, cases, and money, each figure with the case list behind it.
Your process, your standards
Configured, not rewritten
Caseload caps, deadlines, rates, hearing types, outcomes, screening thresholds, and billing periods are settings a unit edits, each with the date it takes effect. When a standard changes, the setting changes and the history stays correct.
What a unit can setConfidentiality
Sealed at the database
An appointed attorney can read only the cases they are on. Financial screenings are visible only to the office. One county cannot reach another's records. These rules are enforced by the database on every request, not by what the screens choose to show.
The security measuresCompliance
Numbers that can be defended
Every quarterly figure prints with the cases behind it, grouped by month. When a number is asked about, the answer is a page rather than a search through last spring's notes.
Figures the system genuinely cannot see are marked as such rather than reported as zero. A number that excludes something says what it excluded and why.
The record
Findings are not edited
An indigency determination is a finding. Correcting one records a new screening that supersedes the old, so both stay on file and the change is part of the record.
Changes are logged with who made them and when, and the screen says who recorded a note or uploaded a document.
Features →
Everything it does, stage by stage, and how it lines up with commercial practice software.
Reports →
Every report, what it measures, and the case list behind each figure.
Configuration →
Fitting it to a unit's own process and to any system's standards.
Security →
The technical measures that keep client information confidential.