Kent County to establish Office of Public Defender

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Kent County will end its contract with a local nonprofit and establish a new county Office of Public Defender, the county’s Board of Commissioners has decided.

The county said the came after commissioners reviewed a report by the National Association for Public Defense that looked at current operations — among those, the use of the nonprofit Kent County Office of the Defender to provide representation for people who can’t afford a lawyer. Kent County Administrator Al Vanderberg recommended the change to a public office in March and the board approved the decision on Thursday.

The county says the report, finalized in 2024, identified several areas to improve and recommended transitioning away from the nonprofit, which has been around since the 1970s, and to a county-managed office.

The county said in a release that over the last six years, it has implemented the mandated standards issued by the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, monitored their effectiveness and learned valuable lessons from the statewide implementation process.

In March, the deputy director of the nonprofit defender, Laura Joyce, told News 8 that management had already flagged several of the same issues listed in the report and was working to fix them. This change, she said, would mean the agency would lose all of its contracts, effectively shutting it down.

Joyce said the nonprofit’s employees were told they would all have to apply and interview to work in the new office. Though she conceded that county leaders said “the vast majority” of staff “would be fine,” she said the county would not promise them anything.

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