The JFDM Roster application is open to defense attorneys across the state who practice in the following counties. Counties not listed below will retain their appointment authority through the Public Defender’s office of that county; please contact the public defender in that county for information on being appointed to JFDM cases. Surry Wilkes Davie Stokes Yadkin Davidson Rockingham Forsyth Rowan Caswell Nash Cabarrus Person Edgecombe Stanly Granville Wilson Montgomery Vance Lee Iredell Warren Harnett Alexander Franklin Catawba Randolph

We are assuming most attorneys are comfortable traveling to neighboring counties (up to 60 miles from their home office), but we are happy to make note of any travel restrictions or preferences you may have. If you’re only willing to take cases in one particular county, that works for us. If you’re willing to travel all over the state, that works for us too. Please see the question about turning down cases as well.

Juvenile first degree murder cases for youth ages 13 through 17 are paid at the current IDS Class A rate of $100/hour.

Payment for JFDM cases will be paid monthly by OJD/IDS and will not go through the judge. Attorneys will submit their hours worked monthly and will be paid monthly.

No – Requests for funds for experts will be sent directly to OJD/IDS and will skip the judge all together.

Absolutely, positively yes. It is important that attorneys only have as many cases as they can competently manage. We expect attorneys to let us know if they can’t take a case when we ask, and we will circle back around the next time (or the next time, or the next time).

We are thankful that the number of JFDM cases that go through our courts is relatively low, and we are likely to only ask to assign one JFDM to any attorney at any time. For those reasons, we encourage even those defenders with a heavy caseload to apply for the roster as you can always let us know that you don’t have the capacity to take a case any time!

Yes, please. While many of the qualifications for being on the Capital Roster overlap with what we are asking on our application, there are several different topics and questions for which we need information from you that don’t overlap with Capital Roster qualifications. We know frontline defenders have a lot on their plates and appreciate you taking the time to complete yet another document.

Yes, many! We have three different types of trainings: substantive, logistical, and a subset of the logistical training for first appearances. Our substantive FDM trainings were offered live, and we loved seeing so many faces for our day of training. Those trainings were recorded and are available for viewing on our website, under the defender portal. (Attendance at the training or viewing of the videos is a requirement to be on the roster.) OJD will host a “Logistics Training” to help answer questions about how the JFDM Roster will operate, including the appointment process and procedure, provisional counsel process, applying for expert funding, and payment of attorney fees. See the training here: https://youtu.be/r3_ZHunhF_Y?si=juva0hvNofFUJXAx(https://youtu.be/r3_ZHunhF_Y?si=juva0hvNofFUJXAx) For other court stakeholders OJD will be holding two trainings on March 25, 2026. Links to those trainings will be posted here shortly after the trainings have been held. Access our training calendar below.

The “Go Live” date is cases on or after March 30, 2026.