After 20 years in Springfield, public defenders get new offices

The Missouri public defender's office moved June 24 into its new 5,150-square-foot complex at 630 N. Robberson Ave. This is the public defender's second home since its 1982 establishment in Springfield. For 20 years, the agency occupied third-floor space in the Woodruff Building at 330 Park Central East. Their previous lessor was Davis Properties.

The public defender's office space in the Woodruff Building "just was not suitable. We didn't have enough space; we had attorneys in closets, basically. We had attorneys setting up offices in the law library. We needed room to grow," said Kent Hall, district defender for, which includes Greene, Christian and Taney counties. Hall manages the Springfield office.

Public digs, private owners

Differing from typical office arrangements involving state agencies, the public defender's new offices are not in a state-owned structure, but in one owned by and leased from Hoke Brothers Construction Inc.

"It's an investment for them. There was no out-of-pocket to the counties or to the public defender system," Hall said.

We have a "long-term lease renewable basically every seven years," Hall said. These costs, which include rent and utilities, come to about $90,000 a year and are paid proportionately by the three counties the office serves "based upon their share of populations," he added. The prior lease at the Woodruff Building was about $35,000 annually.

Employee salaries and any costs associated with litigation, such as taking depositions, hiring expert witnesses and conducting any relevant tests, are borne by Missouri's almost $35 million public defender system budget, Hall said.

Benefits of design

Starting with some floor-plan ideas provided by Warren & Goodin Engineers-Architects Inc., Hall and his colleagues helped shape their future work space. We actually got to design the interior layout of the offices," Hall said. "We wanted a perimeter of offices with windows."

There was design flexibility inherent in private ownership, Windsor Warren said, president of Warren & Goodin. The layout didn't have to conform to state building rules for space requirements per employee. The 9,000-square-foot building also houses Legal Aid of Southwest Missouri in 2,130 square feet with the remaining 1,720 of square feet still unleased.

Enormous work loads

An increase in the size and efficiency of the public defender's offices was necessary.

"Our caseload increased 20 percent in the last fiscal year," Hall said. "It built up into a clogged-up situation where we had a tremendous backlog of old cases and clients that were waiting in jail waiting for their cases to be resolved."

Local public defender attorneys handle up to 250 cases a year to conclusion, Hall said. This is much "higher than you'll find in private firms per attorney." Until Gov. Carnahan appointed a commission to check public defender pay rates in 1994, "the Missouri public defender was the lowest-paid public defender system in the United States."

There are 20 people employed in the Springfield public defender office. Of these, 10 assistant district defenders, two investigators and three support staff are under Hall's supervision. Salary levels for assistant district defenders range from $33,000 to $51,552. District defender salaries range between $57,000 to $63,660 for the top position.

The office also has two attorneys and an investigator out of the Monett public defender office and two others who are "alternative sentencing specialists," Hall said. The office also has two interns this summer.

There are 36 different district public defender offices for the trial division scattered throughout the state, Hall said. There are also two other divisions an appellate and a capital, with offices in St. Louis, Kansas City and Columbia.

Hall's background

Hall has been with Missouri's public defender's office for 12 1/2 years. He took over the helm of the local office in July 2001, after spending about five years in the Cape Girardeau public defender's office. He left there as district defender. Prior to that tenure he was in the Kansas City public defender's trial office for six years.

After graduating law school in 1988 from Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., Hall spent two years working for a private firm in the Kansas City area before joining the public defender's office.