20151216-84203-62

Initial teleconference with site to collect information about site's project, describe TTA role, and plan for future meetings. Ongoing communication and planning through email.

During this reporting period, Smart Defense Kentucky's progress was slowed by state government and university contracting processes that delayed grantee, the Department of Public Advocacy (DPA), in beginning work with, respectively, its new Conflict Counsel Coordinator and its research partner. During this period, NLADA held bi-weekly calls to help the DPA move parts of its project forward while issues bringing these key project partners on board were being worked out. In particular, NLADA was able to advise Kentucky about possible evaluation techniques for its conflict counsel training. Now that the research partners have begun their work, NLADA helped them work with DPA on project structure and goals.

On May 23, NLADA met with the project team at the Smart Defense Inter-site Summit. NLADA designed the Summit to foster collaboration between researchers and practitioners in each site and among sites. The Summit was the first in-person meeting of the Smart Defense Kentucky researchers and practitioners working on the project. Smart Defense Kentucky found considerable similarities between its work and that of Smart Defense New York (which is also focused on conflict counsel system improvement) and gained valuable insight from the practitioners with experience in conflict counsel program administration as well as the researchers with experience in performance measurement. Due to information shared at the Summit, upon returning home the Conflict Counsel Coordinator added mandatory performance measures reporting to the conflict counsels’ new contracts, which were just being finalized.

On June 21 and 22, NLADA conducted its initial project site visit in Frankfort, Kentucky, during the grant-funded conflict counsel training program. This was the first-ever training in Kentucky designed specifically for the needs of conflict counsel. The training covered topics like how to ethically represent co-defendants; how to receive funding from the courts for experts, investigators or social workers; how to design alternative sentencing plans for clients; and how to access motions banks and other resources already available online to Kentucky's full-time defenders. While on site, NLADA met with conflict counsel to ask them about their unmet needs. Simple, no-cost mechanisms to immediately provide more support and connection for conflict counsel were identified and longer-term solutions were discussed. NLADA also spoke with local defenders and a judge to learn how resource gaps might be closed through various political mechanisms. DPA hopes that the research that comes out of this project will justify continued resources for oversight and support of its conflict attorneys (which the attorneys themselves welcome); NLADA discussed with the researchers what kinds of information their work could usefully produce. NLADA also observed video arraignments at the local courthouse to get context for local judicial culture.

DPA’s Conflict Counsel Coordinator has already implemented changes to the conflict counsel system, such as requiring, in conflict counsel’s contracts, case reviews in certain matters and mandatory data reporting to DPA (an addition that came out of the Smart Defense Inter-site Summit). The Coordinator has also distributed extra training materials to conflict counsel in a target region. NLADA continues to explore ways to connect the Kentucky practitioners and researchers so that these new practices can be effectively evaluated.

During this reporting period, the Conflict Counsel Coordinator and administrative assistant hired by grantee Kentucky Department of Advocacy (DPA) implemented substantive and administrative changes to the conflict counsel system that support the Smart Defense pilot project. An example of a substantive change was initiating case reviews with conflict counsel in the project’s target zone as cases neared trial dates. An example of an administrative change involved manually pulling case-related court data needed to report on the effect of training and supports to changes in conflict counsel case activities. Meanwhile the research partner, the University of Louisville, was delayed in pressing forward with data analysis as it continued to await IRB finalization needed for go-ahead. NLADA and NCJA provided ongoing communication and planning to DPA through phone and email and began strategizing ways for DPA to utilize Subject Matter Expert funding to automate data collection both for immediate needs of the project and for future sustainability.

Marea Beeman and Jack Cutrone conducted a site visit to Kentucky in May-June (2017) during the Department of Public Advocacy’s (DPA) second Smart Defense training presented to contract attorneys. They met with the Smart Defense Kentucky Program Coordinator, John Delaney, along with many DPA Department of Public Advocacy (DPA) staff who were involved with delivering the training (Damon Preston, Ed Monahan, Glenda Edwards, Brian Rogers, and Glenn McClister), plus University of Louisville researcher Michael Losavio. Meetings with took place to discuss the status of the project overall; the current research plan; the site’s research partner relationship; and the sustainability goals of project. This site visit also provided an opportunity for NLADA to provide assistance ensuring that the research partner will be able to fulfill all research goals and deliverables. After consulting with the site team, NLADA helped to create a plan to have Jack Cutrone perform a line-by-line review of DPA’s researcher contract with the University of Louisville to identify all conducted and remaining deliverables. This was shared with practitioner and researcher partners, who further met internally to review and identify remaining work and how it would be accomplished. The team agreed on what deliverables and activities remain and are pursuing a grant modification of project funds to ensure the researcher has necessary resources to deliver. As with the other Smart Defense project site visits, the visit put the project in much sharper focus, allowing NLADA to support and message about its advances more effectively. NLADA and NCJA also provided ongoing communication and planning through phone and email during this reporting period.
The significant advances made by the site team in the reporting period include: prompting a team focus on research deliverables, and guiding the team to a meeting of the minds of how the work will be carried out. This will help the Smart Defense project to better guide future projects through challenges between researchers and practitioners with real-life examples of challenges and solutions.
Moving forward, the TTA team will support Kentucky by continuing monthly TTA calls that discussion of the status of the research deliverables on every call, and in between consults with John Delaney as needed to ensure the project is on track.

During this reporting period the most significant step forward for the project was the collection of project data. John Delaney was able to share his project results with the Trial Division allowing the group to better understand the realities of their conflict contractors, previously only understood through perception or anecdotal evidence. This project is still somewhat hampered the overall lack of resources available to private attorneys to allow them to focus on more PD cases. In the coming months, we hope to support this project in determining the effectiveness of the case reviews in process and develop sustainability planning around conflict contractor methods.

During this reporting period, the NLADA/NCJA TTA team held regular check in calls with Innovative Solutions grantee, the Kentucky Department of Advocacy (DPA), and its research partner, the University of Louisville, to provide advice, feedback and encouragement for project progress.
The KY project seeks to study the effect of providing increased supports, including enhanced training and one on one personal attention, to attorneys who accept conflict of interest cases from the Kentucky Department of Advocacy. In this reporting period, the project team continued data collection on cases handled by a target group of attorneys, and moved toward analysis of survey data collected over three years. The research partner is planning to produce outcomes plus comparisons across dempgraphics and regoins for the survey data. Meanwhile, the DPA Project Director contines to provide supports for the target group of conflict attorneys, such as providing case reviews and offering second chair assistance in trial cases. He is also developing new tools for use by the statewide conflict program, such as a new application form, and is sharing preliminary findings about the effect of the project with DPA regonal managers who oversee conflict attorneys. The project is expected to wrap up in September 2018.

During this reporting period, the NLADA/NCJA TTA team held two final check in calls with Innovative Solutions grantee, the Kentucky Department of Advocacy (DPA), and its research partner, the University of Louisville, to provide advice, feedback and encouragement for project progress. The KY project studied the effect of providing increased supports, including enhanced training and one on one personal attention, to attorneys who accept conflict of interest cases from the Kentucky Department of Advocacy. The project team worked toward finalizing its closeout report by December 31, 2018. One key finding was that attorney training, and by extension case outcomes, can be improved through use of data and evidence, such as attorney surveys coupled with court outcome data. DPA expects that continued data-driven and evidence-based development of attorney training will improve services offered by conflict attorneys.