How client advocates are quietly reshaping criminal defense

In September 2023, Ashley, a 29-year-old mother of two who grew up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles, was facing child abuse and neglect charges in a criminal case related to substance use.

Her arrest led to her being separated from her youngest daughter.

But instead of receiving jail time, Ashley was connected with a specialized advocate who took the time to understand her and her case. She completed two inpatient substance-use treatment programs. In April 2024, she started a one-year outpatient treatment program.

By that June, she had reunited with her daughter, who is now 2 years old. And in April 2025 — a year after entering outpatient treatment — Ashley’s criminal case was fully dismissed after she had met every requirement of her court-ordered plan. (Stateline agreed to withhold Ashley’s full name to prevent potential retaliation in the ongoing custody case of her older child.)

When she first entered the courtroom, Ashley recalled, she felt like a “lost puppy.” But through a collaborative defense model spearheaded by the national nonprofit Partners for Justice, she found not just support but strength.

Jaya Duckworth, who has been a client advocate in Los Angeles County for two years, helped Ashley obtain an ID, fill out and sign important documents, and connect to counseling and outpatient treatment.

A high school graduate with some college experience, Ashley now plans to return to school and continue raising her 2-year-old. She’s also working closely with her defense team to regain custody of her 9-year-old daughter.

“Without her help, I don’t think I would have been reunited with my daughter,” Ashley said in an interview with Stateline. “I have my little one here now, and I know that I’m confident to step into that courthouse and keep trying.”

Her experience reflects a growing shift in public defense — one that recognizes that attorney advocacy alone often isn’t enough.

But this shift is unfolding at a time when national momentum is swinging in the opposite direction, with many political leaders renewing calls to crack down on crime through tougher sentencing and increased policing.

“There’s just so much data out there that shows that this approach doesn’t work,” said Alaina Bloodworth, the executive director of the Black Public Defenders Association. Bloodworth previously served as a public defender in Louisiana for six years. “Tough on crime is fueled by emotions. It’s not fueled or based in any type of data.

“It has not worked for us, and it definitely doesn’t work for communities of color.”

A 2019 study by the Rand Corp. and the University of Pennsylvania Law School found that holistic defense — which integrates legal, social and community support — may not only reduce jail and prison time but may also improve long-term outcomes for clients. The study, which compared holistic and traditional public defense models in New York City over a 10-year period, found that holistic representation reduced the likelihood of a custodial sentence by 16% and reduced the expected sentence length by 24%. It also saved taxpayers an estimated $160 million on inmate housing costs.

This model has quietly taken root in pockets of the country — often showing results that are difficult to ignore. As local governments weigh various budget priorities and public safety, some public defenders and advocates are making the case that holistic support isn’t an add-on, but a necessary part of effective legal representation.

“Having holistic defense gives the client the agency and autonomy that they need to decide for themselves,” said Michael Halkias, the chief public defender for Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. “And once people feel empowered to make decisions when they’re in a system that tells them they have no power, I think ultimately it helps them in the long run.”

The county’s office has had client advocates for nearly a year.

The holistic defense model

Holistic defense, which emerged in the 1990s, pairs legal representation with social support and resources. The goal is not to excuse or overlook criminal behavior, but to address the underlying factors, such as poverty, substance use and trauma, that sometimes drive people into the justice system in the first place.

“When you meet those basic needs, it ensures that they don’t come back to the system,” Bloodworth said. “What I am not trained on is how to truly meet social needs in the way that social workers are trained or client advocates, so having a team of professionals representing someone is truly important to ensure that person actually gets the best representation.”

One of the organizations leading this shift is Partners for Justice, a national nonprofit that began operations in 2018. The group created a collaborative defense model by embedding trained client advocates directly within public defender offices, where they work alongside attorneys as part of an integrated and client-led defense team.

Some of the client advocates are recent college graduates with aspirations to go into law or public policy who commit to two-year fellowships, while others bring firsthand experience from the criminal legal system. The team’s goal is to confront the underlying causes and prevent many of the most dire consequences of criminal legal involvement.

Today, Partners for Justice has placed advocates in 25 public defense agencies across 17 states. Earlier this year, the organization expanded its reach through new partnerships with the Colorado State Public Defender and the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender.

Many client advocates build their own networks of local service providers to connect clients directly with the help they need.

Sometimes, it’s walking a client through a release from incarceration plan. Other times, it’s simply holding their hand in court — or showing up with something to eat.

“One of the most important parts of my job is to contribute in a small part to restoring the dignity and humanity that the system denies them,” said Duckworth, the client advocate who worked with Ashley, the 29-year-old California mother. She is one of more than 20 advocates working within the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office.

The model eases the burden on overworked public defenders by allowing them to focus on legal strategy, rather than juggling the complex needs of dozens of clients at once.

“Our caseloads are high,” said New Jersey Public Defender Jennifer Sellitti. “But at the same time, we’re also creatures of, ‘I’m just going to do it all myself.’”

One of the biggest challenges, she said, was shifting that mindset.

“The biggest hurdle was trying to say to lawyers, ‘We want you just to lawyer,’” Sellitti told Stateline. “But that very, very quickly has turned into an incredible partnership in all three of our pilot offices.”

Since offering the Partners for Justice client advocate program in three offices across Atlantic, Hudson and Monmouth counties in March, Sellitti said, the offices have helped clients access treatment programs more quickly than they would through traditional routes like probation or recovery court.

The collaborative defense model also helps build trust between clients and their defense team. Some client advocates say there’s a common perception among defendants that public defenders don’t care about their clients. But many public defenders are stretched so thin that it’s nearly impossible to give each case the attention it deserves.

“We have been helpful in bridging that communication gap between the lawyers and their clients,” said Paul Boyd, a client advocate with the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender in Atlantic County.

Boyd, who spent time in prison, said his background helps him build trust with clients who relate to his experience and therefore better understand the heavy caseloads their attorneys face. That connection, he said, often makes clients more willing to cooperate with their defense team.

A fragile lifeline in Portland

Budget cuts in some states, though, could threaten the advocacy work.

A program that has helped dozens of defendants in the Multnomah County area of Oregon is now at risk of being cut from two of the county’s major law firms that offer public defense services. The county faces a $15.5 million budget shortfall driven by a pandemic-era drop in property tax revenues.

Among those the program has supported in Portland is a 33-year-old resident and Alaska Native who has lived there for nearly a decade. The resident, who asked that their name not be used out of concerns for safety, was arrested last fall and charged under Measure 11, Oregon’s mandatory-minimum sentencing law. A prison sentence loomed over them.

After spending nearly a month in county jail, they worked with client advocate Cierra Carlson on a release plan — outlining their goals for substance use recovery, going over the resources they wanted to be connected to and naming other steps to keep out of the criminal legal system.

“I was worried that I was going to fall through the cracks, that I was just going to be treated like a number,” they said in an interview with Stateline.

But upon release, they entered a “culturally specific” substance use treatment center that serves people of color. They secured more stable housing, and with Carlson’s help reactivated their food stamps and health insurance.

“I feel way more seen than I have in the past,” they said.

But Carlson’s position could soon be eliminated.

Under Multnomah County’s proposed budget, $621,261 in funding for client advocate or case manager positions at the Metropolitan Public Defender, a nonprofit law firm that contracts with the state to offer public defense services, and Multnomah Defenders Inc. would be eliminated — cutting all six positions across the county. It’s one of many potential cuts that county leaders are looking at to save money.

Two amendments have been proposed to keep the program, though. One would fully reinstate the $621,261 in funding, while the other would allocate about $415,000, likely resulting in the loss of one or two positions.

Carlson said she’s worried about what might happen to her clients if the program were cut. “I have seen the difference that it can make.”

The proposed cuts come as Oregon’s public defense system is in crisis.

More than 3,700 people charged with crimes across the state currently have no legal representation, according to the latest state data. More than 1,700 others have missed their court dates after never being assigned an attorney — and now face active arrest warrants.

“Even if this program goes away temporarily, it’s not something that we are going to back away from because it is so critical to our work and to the success and safety of our community, too,” said Grant Hartley, the director of the Metropolitan Public Defender.

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