News Photo by Temi Fadayomi Chief Public Defender Rick Steiger works at his desk at Northeast Michigan Regional Defenders Office in Alpena on July Wednesday.

ALPENA — The Northeast Michigan Regional Defenders Office has seen steady improvements and expansion since its launch over two years ago, officials said.

“It’s greatly improved over the old system,” Attorney Ron Bayot, a deputy public defender for the office, said. “More attorneys, we work together better, and the caseload is more even.”

When its doors first opened on July 1, 2021, the Northeast Michigan Regional Defenders Office was using office space on Chisholm Street, with plans to relocate. The office had three attorneys, with plans to hire a fourth, and plans for a site in Montmorency County.

Now, over two years later, the office is now permanently located at 503 N. Second Ave., has four attorneys in Chief Public Defender Rick Steiger, Chief Deputy Public Defender Julie Miller, Bayot, deputy public defender, and Deputy Public Defender Dennis Grenowicz, as well as two additional support staff and an in-house social worker.

The agency also has an office in Atlanta with one person working as support staff.

Steiger attributes a lot of the office’s growth to funding obtained through the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission, a state agency tasked with improving criminal defense for those who can’t afford to hire their own attorney.

“MIDC got involved with the counties, and, now, they properly fund this office,” Steiger said. “We’ve been provided with the ability to hire experienced attorneys, proper staff, and focus on following the guidelines and the standards of MIDC.”

Another element of the improvements of the defender’s office that Steiger points out is the work done by the office’s social worker, Amanda Schulkey.

“A huge bonus that I’ve seen is having a social worker,” Steiger said. “Recently we have been seeing a lot of our clients with some severe mental health issues. Amanda with her connections and her experience has been able to allow us to focus on the criminal matter that brought them here while she assisted them in getting the proper help to keep them from coming back.”

Schulkey started working for the defenders office on Oct. 1, 2022 and assists in a myriad of activities meant to help defendants during and after trial.

These can range from gathering and presenting records of a defendant’s mental health history to be presented in court to helping provide transportation for defendants who are unable. Schulkey believes that the office’s focus on a more holistic approach to client defense makes it stand out among other public defense offices.

“Generally speaking, I think that public defender offices everywhere have had a bad rap of not representing people to the fullest if they had a paid attorney, this office is completely different,” Schulkey said. “This place is more person-centered.”

Despite those gains, Steiger still hopes to gain additional resources so that his office can better represent its clients. Some of the growth that he is hoping to see is the hiring of a full-time private investigator and the hiring of additional attorneys.

Regardless, Steiger and the rest of the attorneys at the office are proud of the work they have been able to do over the last two years and remain dedicated to their goal to preserve the constitutional rights of their clients.

“Our job is to represent indigent defendants and to, most fundamentally, make sure that their constitutional rights are protected and vindicated,” Grenowicz said.