Important Changes to IDS Rules and Billing Policies
On August 22, 2025, the IDS Commission approved some substantial changes to the billing and expense policies for noncapital criminal and non-criminal case types. These changes will be effective for cases charged on or after January 1, 2026.
The goal is for these revised Rules and policies to reflect the reality of practice and IDS operations in the year 2025 and beyond.
There are three major policy updates for noncapital-criminal and non-criminal case types, which will affect the way some attorneys do business and bill for cases:
- Attorneys must file fee apps within 90 days of disposition for cases charged on or after January 1, 2026. (This replaces the one-year deadline that was in place for so long.)
- Attorneys must maintain billing/timekeeping records for up to five years; these records must be made available to IDS upon request.
- And because of a recent and concerning number of instances of the “whitewashing” of paper checks, attorneys are required to set up direct deposit/ePay. (Here is a link to the ePay Form with instructions.)
These changes do not apply to capital appeals or capital cases—only to noncapital criminal and non-criminal cases.
Additional revisions involve clarifying and streamlining the language of the previous policy.
To hear more about these updates and the rationale behind them, please watch this informational video: https://youtu.be/mzNHt5GYf3M
Videography by the Judicial Branch Communications Office
OR
CLICK HERE review the changes to Rule 1.9 and the accompanying policy revisions. You will find clean versions of the new documents as well as change tables to indicate where the revisions occurred.