‘Game-changer’: Montgomery County pledges to significantly expand public defender’s office

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Montgomery County is significantly expanding its public defender’s office to align with national staffing standards.

Pennsylvania’s third largest county is seeking to hire 15 new public defenders, an assistant chief of mental health, administrative support staff and a social worker.

“This effort was really to ensure that we properly staff our public defender’s office and ensure that we’re providing equitable, indigent defense to people in the community that need it,” Commissioner Jamila Winder said.

The American Bar Association and the National Center for State Courts published the National Public Defense Workload Study in September 2023, which exposed the widespread problem of excessive caseloads facing public defenders.

Paul Heaton, academic director of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Carey Law Center, serves as the chair of Montgomery County’s Public Defender Advisory Board. He published a report accessing caseloads at offices across the state.

He found 60 out of 66 Pennsylvania counties have staffing levels below constitutional norms. Montgomery County Chief Public Defender Christine Lora said attorneys in her office are swamped.

“From a client perspective, of course, you’re worried about unwieldy caseloads because you need your attorney to be focused on you,” Lora said.

Heavy caseloads can exacerbate staff burnout. She used the data to advocate for a staff augmentation. County leaders listened. Lora called it a “game-changer.”

“We work together as an office to make sure that we don’t have clients that are falling in between the cracks, but imagine how much easier that will be by reducing an individual attorney’s case loads,” Lora said.

Approximately 50 people in the Montgomery County Public Defender’s Office hold lawyer titles. The Montgomery County Salary Board, comprising the three first-term county commissioners and the county controller, voted unanimously Thursday to increase that number by 30%.

“This is one bold step in being innovative and putting our money where our mouth is to invoke real change — especially in communities that have historically been on the margins and can’t necessarily afford to pay for private legal counsel,” Winder said.

‘It’s a new day here in Montgomery County’: Turning the page on tension

The county’s investment into indigent defense is significant in more ways than one. In 2020, the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners fired two of its top public defenders for criticizing the county’s bail practices. The incident seized national headlines and left a storm cloud over the profession.

“It was really painful for the entire public defense community,” Lora said.

She was working as a public defender in Philadelphia then but remembers that outrage among her colleagues.

“That was a really difficult time. [Public defenders] everywhere took that to heart,” she said. “They took it very personally.”

Lora, Winder and the other commissioners are all fresh faces in county government. Lora said the open line of communication between herself and county leaders can be seen as a fresh start.

“It’s a new day here in Montgomery County,” Lora said. “The administration that I am working with and under right now, I believe that they share a value system with our office. They are justice-forward.”

She said the county’s latest investments into mental health services are a testament to their dedication. Winder said her beliefs are informed by lived experiences. The opioid crisis hit close to home. She said her brother has been in and out of the system.

“I know first-hand as a family member some of the challenges that he faced and how our system failed him,” Winder said. “I’m bringing some of those lived experiences to the dais and to the commissioner’s office to think about and look nationally and globally at what are the types of programming that we can avail ourselves to really help those that are affected by mental health and addiction.”