Public defender agency tells House appropriators vacancies and rising caseloads threaten constitutionally required representation

Travis Fink, executive director of the North Dakota Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigence, told the House Appropriations Government Operations Division that the agency is short on attorneys, facing rising case assignments and seeking targeted funding to avoid failing to provide constitutionally guaranteed counsel.

Fink told committee members the commission operates six public defender offices (Williston, Dickinson, Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks and Minot) with an administrative office in Jamestown and a statutory mission established in North Dakota Century Code 50‑04‑61. He said the agency currently lists 41 full‑time equivalent positions, with seven attorney vacancies and turnover that has averaged about 25 percent per calendar year; for the current biennium the commission has turned over 19 of 41 FTEs. Fiscal year 2024 was the agency's highest year for case assignments, 16,671, and Fink said the commission is seeing a sustained increase in felony work, which takes far more attorney hours than misdemeanors.

The staffing shortages have pushed the commission to rely heavily on contract attorneys. Fink said the statutory model anticipates a roughly 50/50 mix of public defenders and contractors but that last fiscal year contractors provided closer to 73 percent of assignments because of vacancies and turnover. He told legislators the agency sometimes must pay attorneys to travel long distances—for example, to drive from Dickinson to Watford City for five‑minute court events—because local staffing is not available.

Why this matters: the agency is charged with providing counsel consistent with the U.S. Constitution and state law. Fink warned that persistent understaffing could force the commission to notify…