Letter of Support for project sent to respondents

NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC), on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), U.S. Department of Justice, is collecting information from every indigent defense system (IDS) in the United States. The 2013 National Survey of Indigent Defense Systems (NSIDS) is the first study of its kind to collect data at both the state and local level for each delivery method in which representation is provided. The information gathered will provide the indigent defense community with a much more complete picture of how indigent defense services are provided across the nation.

The National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA), the American Council of Chief Defenders (ACCD), the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), the National Association of Counties (NACo), the National Association of County Administrators (NACA), and the American Bar Association (ABA) - through its Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants - fully support this effort to obtain information about the operations, staffing, caseloads, and funding for all indigent defense systems throughout the country.

A successful census requires that each indigent defense system complete this survey. Without your participation, we will not have a complete picture of how indigent services are provided across the nation and will lack critical pieces of information from which to make informed decisions. With your help, we will make quality data about indigent defense available to those responsible for making decisions regarding the provision of indigent defense within their state or local jurisdiction. No other data collection effort obtains such data from every state and county-based indigent defense system in the U.S.

We thank you in advance for your participation in this important national study. Upon completion of the study, BJS will distribute the findings on its website and will make the data set available through the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.

We strongly encourage you to take the time to complete the survey and return it to NORC as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

NLADA	ACCD	NACDL	NACO	NACA	ABA