Survey of Publicly Appointed Defense Attorneys: Design Study

This report was produced by the Urban Institute, Indigent Defense Research Association, and National Association for Public Defense for the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) under award number 2016-R2-CX-K032. BJS had funded design work for a survey of attorneys providing criminal defense to indigent defendants under a solicitation called the Survey of Public Defenders: A Design Study. The project was later renamed to accurately reflect the potential respondents. This report describes the development work and cognitive testing for the survey instrument and addresses the challenges of identifying the appropriate universe, sampling, and nonresponse issues. It is based on work completed between 2016 and 2018.