A decision support model to facilitate new strategies and business models for appointing counsel in courts
by Carl M. Rebman Jr., Queen Esther Booker
Electronic Government, an International Journal (EG), Vol. 7, No. 4, 2010

Abstract: The process of court appointed counsel can experience severe problems and cause societal damage if the counsel is not assigned properly. To overcome these challenges a new strategy facilitated by a business model and a prototype decision support system (Court Appointed Council System) is developed in this paper. This system is based on a strategic management assessment model to aid public defenders in improving the assignment of court appointed counsel for indigent clients. The proposed system demonstrates that with the appropriate collection of data and rules along with reengineering the appointment process, it is possible to improve personnel assignments by reducing unknown conflicts of interests and identifying the attorney most likely to be acceptable to the client while taking into consideration case-weighting. The study found that CACS was able to account for over 95% of qualitative and quantitative data to make more effective court appointed assignments. If fully implemented, such a system could create value by saving count appointed counsel offices significant dollars by reducing incarceration and attorney costs.

Online publication date: Sun, 03-Oct-2010

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