Opinion ID: 1788578
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Brief Banks

Text: The Public Defender's office does not possess a formal brief bank. The lawyers do have their own research and brief files, and all lawyers attempt to use and take advantage of each other's research. Although cases are treated individually, there is no attempt to reinvent the wheel on every case. A statewide computerized brief bank is presently under development by the Florida Public Defender's Association under the supervision of Mr. Bennett Brummer, Public Defender of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit. The Tenth Circuit Public Defender's Office would increase its efficiency if it had access to a current computerized brief bank. Attempts have been made in the past by the Tenth Circuit to use brief banks and such attempts have often fallen into disuse because of two problems. Initially, compiling the brief banks and daily upkeep are very time consuming. Secondarily, brief banks must be continuously purged of old materials which become dated and clutter the data base. Criminal appellate issues tend to be hot issues until resolved by the courts or the legislature and then quickly go out of style. Clearly, at this point in time, the new statewide system should be used and efficiency will be increased but only minimally, and clearly not to the extent of solving the backlog problem.