For residents of Monongalia County in need of no-cost criminal defense, the playing field just got a little more even with the opening of the new Public Defender Corporation (PDC) office in downtown Morgantown.
The brand new office is the 20th PDC in West Virginia and will serve the 17th Judicial Circuit.
A ribbon-cutting and open house Thursday evening revealed the office’s newly renovated location on the third floor of the Ward Building at 265 Spruce St,, Suite 300. The space was formerly occupied by the Monongalia County Magistrate Court.
Construction was recently completed by the Huffman Corporation in conjunction with the Mills Group and the Monongalia County Development Authority. A.J. Hammond, Morgantown Area Partnership VP of chamber services facilitated the official ribbon cutting.
PDC Chairperson Michael Simms, who was appointed to the position by Governor Jim Justice in April 2021, said they could not have found a better location with their offices being conveniently located a few blocks from the circuit, magistrate and Morgantown city courts.
Simms said when clients qualify for court-appointed counsel here in Mon County, the court system notifies their office who will first check for any conflicts of interest. If no conflict of interest exists th,e client will be taken on by PDC.
If a conflict does exist, the case will go back to the court system where local defense counsel will be appointed to the case.
Monongalia County Public Defender Justin Hershberger, who has over 16 years experience in criminal defense, said he believes the addition of the PDC office will “bring a centralized office – a specialized office for criminal defense, and that’s really the heart of it. We will have nine attorneys here who will be doing nothing but criminal defense.”
Hershberger said he feels having a centralized office brings comfort to the clients and allows the attorneys to share knowledge and resources and work together to provide more services, like peer recovery coaches and social workers.
“There’s going to be a holistic approach to managing clients here,” Simms explained. “We’re going to hopefully have a peer recovery coach working with us, we’re going to have maybe a social worker here.
“We are going to try to get people hooked up with the services they need because the idea is we want to help people,” he said. “We want to give them excellent legal representation, but we also want them to be able to remedy whatever circumstances brought them into the legal system and reintegrate successfully back into the legal community.”
In addition to traditional office space, the PDC also houses a small courtroom that was preserved during the renovation. Simms explained the small court space was once used by recently retired Circuit Court Judge Phillip Guajot when he was first appointed as Mon County’s third circuit judge. The courtroom will now be used as a “mock” courtroom to help prepare clients and attorneys for court.
The new PDC office also features a “client closet” to help ensure clients are appropriately prepared and dressed for court.
“Getting appropriate clothing for court can be an obstacle for some people, so we want to make that easy,” Simms said.
A client in need of appropriate courtroom attire can meet their attorney at the PDC before going to court and use the closet to find something to wear.
Simms said office staff are also looking forward to being near the WVU School of Law.
“It’s an amazing opportunity because of our situation,” he said. “We are so close to the law school here – the state’s only law school – and so we have an opportunity to have a public defenders office right nearby the law school.”
Simms said law students will be able to come in and see what it’s like to work a case, and what it’s like to go to magistrate court or circuit court.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to do it that way,” he said.
When fully staffed, the PDC will employ nine attorneys and six support staff, including legal secretaries, paralegals, investigators, resource navigators and recovery coaches.
“We’ve staffed this office with amazing lawyers, amazing support staff and it’s a place that – everyone that’s in here -you can feel the energy in this place,” Simms said.
The PDC office is open Monday – Friday from 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. and can be reached at 304-974-1400.
