Every two years, the end of a Congress brings a hard few months for caseworkers whose Members are retiring, running for another office, or losing an election. They have to close out open cases, hand off the ones they cannot close, shut down an office, and figure out what comes next — often all at once, and often while the phones are still ringing.
Today the Constituent Service Institute is launching a free suite of casework transition resources built for exactly that moment.
What is in the toolkit
Caseload Transition Calculator. An interactive tool that helps casework teams plan the timing and volume of case handoffs. Casework managers can model when their office will stop opening new cases, how many open cases will need to move, and where that demand is likely to land, so they can plan the transition instead of reacting to it.
Casework Transition Spreadsheet. A downloadable, automated Excel workbook (it also opens in Google Sheets) for offices handing cases off to colleagues. Caseworkers can track every case in one place, see at a glance which handoffs are complete and which are still open, and generate draft handoff emails pre-filled with each case's information — ready to review and send to the office picking it up.
Job Hunting for Caseworkers. A guide to the job search written for caseworkers: a curated list of job boards across Congress, the Executive branch, state and local government, and the nonprofit sector; tips on translating casework for new fields; and advice from former caseworkers who have made the leap into Hill leadership, nonprofits, federal civil service, policy, academia, and civic tech.
Casework Transition Group. A community for caseworkers heading into a transition. Members get access to a private Signal/WhatsApp group for sharing job leads, small-group career coaching, and conversations with former caseworkers who have been through it. An optional survey on casework career paths will help us understand where casework expertise goes next.
Closing a Casework Operation. A step-by-step guide for caseworkers and casework managers from POPVOX Foundation's Casework Navigator program.
Why now
When we interviewed caseworkers in departing House and Senate offices, their answer surprised us: the real transition is not a single handoff in January. It is a months-long redistribution of constituent demand across an entire delegation. Outgoing offices usually stop opening new cases in early to mid-October and refer constituents to the offices that are staying — which means the surge is already underway.
That strain lands unevenly. In our model of a small state where three of four Members turn over, the remaining Senate office's open caseload nearly quadruples by January. Unlike a natural disaster, though, an election can be planned for — and these tools are meant to help offices on both sides of the handoff do exactly that. You can read more about what we found on the CSI Substack.
Get involved
If you are a caseworker in a departing office, join the Casework Transition Group. If you know one, please pass this along. And if there is a resource you would like to see — or a job board we have missed — email us at info@constituentserviceinstitute.org. We will keep these resources updated through March 2027.