The daily limit is 10 hours, or 12 on a trial day
Most days, the most you can bill CPCS is 10 hours. The one exception is a day you were actually on trial and billing trial time. Those days go up to 12. A long day of prep or hearings does not count. It has to be trial (Assigned Counsel Manual, Chapter 5, Section S). Bill over the limit without a waiver and CPCS trims that day back down to the cap.
There is a yearly ceiling too
Across a full fiscal year, you are capped at 1,650 hours (Assigned Counsel Manual, Section Q, and G.L. c. 211D). Anything past that is not paid, and once you reach it you cannot take new assignments. The Chief Counsel can lift the ceiling, up to 2,000 hours, but only in specific cases, so do not plan your year around it.
The waiver, and the timing that catches people
You can ask to bill over the daily limit for a particular date. You file a Request for Waiver form with the Audit and Oversight Department, one for each date. Here is the part people miss: you file it after you did the work, but before you bill the over-limit time. Bill first and the waiver cannot save that date. You are stuck at 10 (Manual, Section S).
What happens to time over the line
Write it down anyway, in your own records. You just cannot be paid for it without an approved waiver, and you cannot roll it into the next day to sneak under the cap (Manual, Chapter 5). Recorded, unpaid, and it stays on that date.
How Plani helps
Plani keeps a running total and warns you as you approach 10 hours for the day, so the cap never surprises you. Ask it how many hours you have billed today, or this year, and it tells you on the spot. It cannot file a waiver, but it can keep you from quietly running past the limit.