447 | Why did an Oregon Public Defender Sue the Oregon Public Defense Commission? Part 2 w/Stacey Lowe

Today, Hunter spoke w/Stacey Lowe, Executive Director of the Southwest Oregon Public Defender Services. They discussed why Stacey joined Shannon Wilson's lawsuit challenging the new contract conditions put in place by the Oregon Public Defense Commission.     Guest: Stacey Lowe, Executive Director, Southwest Oregon Public Defender Services   Resources: SWOPDS https://swopds.org/   Contact Stacey  [email protected]   Read More About the Suit https://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/local/oregon/2025/11/15/court-opdc-marion-county-public-defenders-contract/87279929007/ https://www.pdmarion.org/information-for-the-media https://kobi5.com/news/top-stories/southern-oregon-public-defense-success-clouded-by-quota-lawsuit-288302/   OPDC Response "We are unable to comment on pending litigation, but for questions about workload standards, I refer you to pages 20-22 (pages 26-28 in the search) of our recent status report. The section on long-term planning describes our goal of transitioning to a workload model.     For questions about contracts, I encourage you to visit our website, where you can find the following information:      Contracts for 2025-2027 Contracts for 2023-2025 A timeline of the contracting process, which included soliciting contractors' feedback on draft contracts through online feedback forms. We also held informational sessions for contractors. Our responses to questions that public defense providers asked while reviewing drafts of the contracts. Maximum attorney caseloads (MAC) – Click on Contracts 2023-2025 and scroll down to "What are the Maximum Attorney Caseloads under the 2023-25 contracts?"    OPDC's contracts are based on maximum attorney caseloads. The MAC standards in the 2025-2027 contracts are identical to those that were in the 2023-2025 contracts. The MAC standards can be found in Exhibit B of the 2025-2027 contracts. They are listed on page 19 under the section titled Rolling Annual Caseload Limits. They are listed on page B-1 under Annual Caseload Limits in the 2023- 2025 contracts."      Sign up for the ABA Public Defender Summit https://events.americanbar.org/event/12d07164-1011-4723-9352-e8e3168db945/welcome     Contact Hunter Parnell:                                 [email protected]  Instagram @PublicDefenselessPodcast Twitter                                                                 @PDefenselessPod www.publicdefenseless.com  Subscribe to the Patreon www.patreon.com/PublicDefenselessPodcast  Donate on PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=5KW7WMJWEXTAJ Donate on Stripe https://donate.stripe.com/7sI01tb2v3dwaM8cMN Trying to find a specific part of an episode? Use this link to search transcripts of every episode of the show! https://app.reduct.video/o/eca54fbf9f/p/d543070e6a/share/c34e85194394723d4131/home