Neighborhood Defender Service of Detroit (NDS) Kristine Longstreet Steps Up to lead the organization.
Pledging to continue expanding its holistic model of indigent defense to the people of Wayne County, Neighborhood Defender Service of Detroit (NDS) today announced several staff transitions. NDS today also announced the establishment of a civil practice that includes legal services for low-income Detroit renters facing eviction and family-related defense for parents.
Kristine Longstreet, a Supervising Attorney for the office since 2019, will take on the role of Managing Director. The founding Managing Director, Chantá Parker, is departing for the Management Center, where she will share her leadership skills with other executives in the public interest sector.
“NDS Detroit is fortunate indeed to have these two phenomenal women serve as leaders back-to-back,” said Rick Jones, Executive Director of the Neighborhood Defender Service, Inc., which also has offices in New York and Texas. “We are deeply grateful to Chantá for her inspiring leadership in Detroit, and to Kristine for stepping up to continue our mission of providing a world-class holistic defense to those in need.”
NDS also announced today that Brandy Y. Robinson, currently a Supervising Attorney in NDS’s Criminal Practice, will take on the role of Managing Attorney. Robinson was part of the NDS inaugural leadership team; she joined NDS after a seven-year stint at the Federal Public Defender Office in Detroit.
Parker, who departs today, said that she looked forward to a seamless transition as her close colleague takes the helm. “I am proud of what we have accomplished together and confident that Kristine will add to our record of success and service to the people of Wayne County,” Parker said. “As a lifelong public defender, helping to establish the NDS Detroit office has been a career highlight, and I am immensely gratified that our holistic defense model has made a difference in our clients’ lives.”
Carla Walker-Miller, CEO of Walker-Miller Energy Services LLC and a member of the NDS national board, commended Parker and Longstreet for helping to make Wayne County’s first-ever holistic public defender office a success. “Chantá deserves high praise for all she has done to help make NDS Detroit a beacon for our community, and I know that Kristine will continue to hold that torch high,” Walker-Miller said. “Detroit reaps the benefits when indigent people accused of crimes are offered a holistic defense that can help mitigate the many life-altering consequences of even a brief encounter with the criminal legal system.”
Longstreet is a Detroit native who attended the city’s public schools and obtained her law degree from the Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing. Her first job after law school was as a public defender for Wayne County, where in nearly two decades she logged more than 18,000 hours of criminal litigation experience, including jury and bench trials. A long-time member of the Black Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, Longstreet has also served as the Human Rights Commissioner for District One.
“What really drew me to working with NDS is their holistic defense model,” Longstreet said. “Having worked as a public defender from my first day out of law school, I have seen first-hand the ways in which clients are vulnerable to the ravages of the legal system. Being accused of a crime should not mean losing your job, your housing or access to your children – by addressing all these issues holistically, we can help people and communities remain intact.”
Despite trial slowdowns due to the pandemic, NDS is busier than ever, Longstreet said. In 2021 the organization added a civil defense practice, providing legal services to people facing eviction as well as parents caught up in the ordeal of the family court system. The recent passage of a Right to Counsel law, Longstreet noted, means that renters who can’t afford a lawyer are now guaranteed representation in court. “Housing instability is one of the most common and damaging collateral consequences of the criminal legal system,” she noted. “Of the 10 zip codes with the highest eviction rates in the city, eight appear in the top 10 zip codes of NDS Detroit criminal defense clients.”
NDS Detroit has served Wayne County since 2019, providing world-class criminal defense to indigent clients. It has handled thousands of felony cases since its inception, while advocating for clients inside and outside the courtroom, and now includes a civil practice that offers family-related services and eviction defense. Currently, NDS Detroit handles approximately 25% of felony cases for Wayne County residents who are unable to afford an attorney.
Neighborhood Defender Service (NDS) is known nationally and internationally for its innovative, community-based, holistic public defense practice. Our dedicated staff is committed to providing unparalleled legal representation. Since opening its doors in Harlem in 1990, NDS has pioneered the holistic model to address problems plaguing public defense. In contrast to a traditional public defense practice, NDS clients have an entire team fighting on their behalf, including criminal and civil attorneys, advocates, social workers, investigators, paralegals, law school and social work interns, and pro bono attorneys. NDS deploys all these resources on behalf of its clients, addressing the underlying issues that bring them into contact with the criminal legal system. NDS staff use their engagement with a client as an opportunity to disentangle them from the system completely.
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