Detroit criminal justice group receives grant from NFL
Down the road from Eastern Market is Neighborhood Defender Services, a nonprofit organization that takes a holistic approach to public defense.
Managing director Kristine Longstreet guides her teams as they provide criminal legal representation for nearly 35% of all indigent felony defendants in Wayne County.
"You want to defend what brings them there, but you want to really, really provide representation, and you want to deal with all the collateral consequences that occur," said Longstreet. "You're asking someone that you just met to trust you. You're asking someone you just met to really understand that you understand what's going on."
Longstreet says the organization engages with its low-income clients from the moment they contact it—a wraparound process that can be difficult to achieve in the traditional public defender's office.
"Everybody who shows up every day that shows up for our clients feels supported and are able to do this work in a meaningful way, and are able to do the work even when it's tough," said Longstreet.
That work did not go unnoticed, even reaching the NFL.
As part of the league's Inspire Change initiative, the nonprofit received a grant renewal to continue supporting the community and training the next generation of public defenders.
"They learned how to build client relationships and confidentiality, but they also learned case brainstorming and how to start to develop case theories and how to go through every part of our job," said training director Lauren Anderson.
Anderson leads the charge, walking their interns and current law students through mock hearings to prepare them for real-world situations.
She says this funding allows them to grow their programs and help as many people as they can.
"We want to be able to get the education, the training, the knowledge that our attorneys, our investigators, our client advocates all have, and filter it out to the community so that they can best advocate for themselves," said Anderson.