Bedford County Chief Public Defender seeks assistant
Hendershot requests funding to hire additional attorney
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BEDFORD -- Bedford County's Chief Public Defender Karen Hendershot requested funding for an additional assistant public defender after single-handedly tackling county court cases.
During Wednesday's budget meeting with Bedford County Commissioners, Hendershot proposed offering a potential full-time attorney $75,000, temporarily covered by the public defender office's state grant funding.
However, she asked the commissioners to cover the employee's benefits package until next year, when they will also pay the employee's salary.
As the county's only public defender, Hendershot said she typically takes on many responsibilities, such as working cases at night and on the weekend with only two secretaries to help.
"I've always been a hard worker, and I'm not complaining about that," she said. "I'm just trying to illustrate the fact that when we're comparing apples to apples, we're well below, and it's time for us to move into the future."
She referenced a 2024 University of Pennsylvania study that documented the shortfalls in Pennsylvania public defense. The study states that attorneys have anywhere from 1,650 to 2,080 hours per year available for client work. Based on those numbers, Bedford County requires 8.5 attorneys to handle 1,650 hours and 6.7 to handle 2,080 hours.
"And I'm asking at this point for one," she said.
The same study also includes that Blair County requires 28.2 attorneys to cover 1,650 hours and 22.3 to cover 2,080 hours. Blair currently has six full-time employees and two part-time attorneys, a Mirror report states.
According to the graphic referenced by Hendershot, Pennsylvania counties meeting the minimum requirements are green, while struggling counties are red. Bedford County, which operates as a sixth class county with more than 47,000 residents, is ranked last, along with Perry and Mifflin counties.
Along with handling caseloads, she said their obligations in treatment court will increase to a full day every two weeks in 2027.
"That's taking even more time away from other duties, which I'm happy about, but there's one of me," she said.
She also said she sorts through massive amounts of evidence, including police officer body camera footage, instant messages and social media. Even in DUI cases, she sorts through hours of body camera footage. If the defendant is incarcerated, she must then watch the footage again with her client.
"I can't do that during business hours, so I'm doing that at night and during the weekend," she said. "It's not odd for me to be at the jail at 10 o'clock at night or on a Saturday night."
While she said her secretaries help, she doesn't have a paralegal to aid the process. She said adding another attorney would alleviate the burden of watching hours of footage and other office obligations.
She added that conflicting events cut into her time in court, such as presenting at the budget meeting instead of handling an ongoing case happening in Central Court at that time. Other times, she was double booked with two cases, causing one to be delayed by two hours until she was present.
To illustrate her workload, she handed a seven-page document to the Bedford County commissioners, detailing her responsibilities as the county's only public defender.
Some of her daily tasks include keeping up with administrative tasks, staying abreast of legislative changes, completing appeals and renovations and handling juvenile cases and following normal procedures of a sample case.
"We're at that point, with the growth of treatment court and my duties there alone, it is taking away from my time to do things here," she said.
To keep a competitive salary, she recommended that the public defender's office offers a $75,000 salary. She currently doesn't have a potential candidate in mind.
"I'm going to have to find somebody out of county to take the job," she said. "There are no lawyers in Bedford County to take the jobs."
After the presentation, commissioner Mike Stiles asked Hendershot if it would be beneficial to hire two part-time attorneys with their own private practices instead of one full-time assistant public defender.
"I thought it might be easier getting someone part time," he said.
She said splitting up the job among two people will result in cases with different attorneys, and clients will have to retell their stories multiple times if they're dealing with more than one representative who doesn't know that client's case.
"That's not a competent way to represent somebody," she said.
Bedford County Judge Travis W. Livengood and District Attorney Ashlan Clark were present at Wednesday's meeting.
Mirror Staff Writer Colette Costlow is at 814-946-7414.