Oregon Public Defense Commission outlines reforms, timeline to move toward state-employed defenders

The Oregon Public Defense Commission told the Senate Committee on Judiciary during an informational hearing that it has tightened oversight of public defense, opened three regional state trial defender offices and is implementing the service-delivery changes required by 2023’s Senate Bill 337.

"We are a mission driven agency, and we are everyday working to fulfill our mission," Jessica Campey, executive director of the Oregon Public Defense Commission, said as she opened a rapid overview of the agency’s recent changes and near-term plans.

Campey said the commission’s reform work grew out of a 2019 Sixth Amendment Center study that identified four main problems in Oregon’s public defense system, including unclear oversight, the drawbacks of a fixed‑fee case model, governance composition issues, and concerns in municipal courts. She told the committee the agency has since made measurable changes in each area.

The commission has implemented a maximum-attorney-caseload (MAC) standard as a transitional oversight tool and is moving toward a timekeeping model. Campey said the agency opened three state trial-level public defender offices in December 2023 — one in the Portland metro area, one in Southern Oregon and one in the Central Valley — and has grown that staff to 20 lawyers who have taken roughly 1,166 trial cases in the first year.

Campey described the commission’s hourly programs, including a temporary higher‑rate program to address an unrepresented‑persons crisis and a growing set of nonattorney vendor fees (investigators, interpreters, behavioral-health providers). She said monthly attorney-fee voucher payouts rose from about $900,000 in July 2023 to about $2.6 million; nonattorney vouchers rose from about $2.2 million to about $7.6 million per month.

Campey said the commission has used DAS’s Office of Economic Analysis for two workload forecasts and is working on a third. She also described administrative changes required by Senate Bill 337: the commission’s governance was reconstituted in 2024, the agency moved administratively into the executive branch earlier this month, and the bill requires that by July 1, 2027, public defenders be state employees, employed by non‑profit public defender offices, or paid as part of a panel of qualified counsel. The law directs cessation of fixed‑fee contracting by July 2025 and launch of a panel of hourly attorneys in July 2025.

Campey provided numerical context for agency growth: operating budget up about 60 percent, state employees up about 74 percent, and the commission contracting with about 35 percent more attorneys than previously. She also reported the commission’s temporary hourly program has delivered representation in about 7,600 cases serving more than 5,000 clients, and staff prioritized counsel for detainees at risk of release under a Ninth Circuit decision; those efforts located counsel in about 1,214 cases.

Campey told legislators the commission intends to shift from the transitional MAC model to timekeeping once case‑management and financial systems are in place and reiterated that implementing the governance and service‑delivery changes will remain a multi‑year process.

The presentation was informational; the committee took no formal action.

A spokeswoman for the committee thanked Campey and noted committee members may follow up with the director and staff for more detail on implementation and funding.

Campey closed by offering additional materials the committee can review, including the commission’s six‑year plan and economic analysis documents.