In a joint pleading by Blagojevich and his brother Robert, who is not indigent, lawyers Sheldon Sorosky and Michael Ettinger write:

[The Government has] tendered 264 CDs and 21 audio cassette tapes wherein the document portion is about 1 million pages. The audio portion is approximately 400 hours of conversations.

That there are approximately 300,000 documents currently at the F.O.B. campaign office contained in paper form and on the computers located there.

....That pursuant to grand jury subpoenas, the Office of the Governor has provided approximately 2 million documents to the government.

The Blago lawyers then do the following math:

That assuming one attorney can work 8 hours a day, 364 days a year, 2912 hours could be expended.

In an 8 hour day, an attorney can only be expected to read, digest, make notes and understand 20 pages an hour or 160 pages a day.
Multiplying 160 pages times 364 days, an attorney would only be able to read and digest 58,240 pages a year.

That 3 million divided by 58,240 pages equals 51 years for one attorney to just read the documents.

With 10 attorneys just reading the materials, it would take 5.1 years. With 20 attorneys just reading the materials, it would take 2.6 years. With 400 hours of tapes, it would take an attorney who listens 8 hours a day, 50 days just to listen to the tapes.

And so on. The Government isn't taking a position on how many lawyers Blago needs, but writes that "the discovery in the instant case is manageable and not as complicated as the defendants suggest."

The Government says some documents have been counted twice; it's willing to provide "line sheets" as to the intercepted phone calls; and it provided the discovery in an electronic, searchable format.

Does Blagojevich even have a lawyer willing to work on the case? AUSA Patrick Fitzgerald writes,

First, despite an indictment being returned on April 2, 2009, not a single lawyer has filed an appearance for defendant Rod Blagojevich in the instant case. Second, despite suggestions in prior court filings that defendant Rod Blagojevich has at least four defense lawyers willing to work on his case, the government has only had discussions with a single lawyer working on behalf of defendant Rod Blagojevich.

Fitz is anxious to get Blago's team identified and for them to start working. He urges them to enter an appearance quickly, and should that not happen, he writes:

Otherwise, the Court should do what it would in any other CJA case, which is to refer the matter to the Federal Defender’s Office for the appointment of counsel.

He makes the point again a few paragraphs later:

...Of course, each of those lawyers would need to be committed to expeditiously reviewing the discovery materials and beginning to prepare the case for trial.

Again, if defendant Rod Blagojevich cannot find counsel willing to engage in the review of discovery, prepare appropriate pretrial motions, and be ready for trial in a reasonable period of time, then the Court should refer the matter to the Federal Defender’s Office for the appointment of counsel.

So, Blago's too broke to pay for his own defense and the Government is willing to let him proceed under the Criminal Justice Act with appointed counsel, whom he gets to choose -- so long as they are willing to work for $110. an hour. But if they don't get on board quickly, Fitz wants the Court to appoint a public defender for him.

I think it makes a big difference how many lawyers the court is willing to appoint. If it's just two or three, Blago's private lawyers may say they don't have time to do the case -- they have to consider their other clients. If it's five or six, they can probably divide the work among them and still have time for their other cases.

Now that Blago has now agreed his lawyers will work for $110 an hour, the Court gets to decide how many he can have. If it's too low a number, Blago may end up with the Federal Community Defenders as his lawyer. That's not a bad thing for Blago, it's one of the best public defenders' offices in the country.