CHRISTOPHER M. Keating, deputy director of the NH Public Defender Program, has been named executive director, replacing Michael K. Skibbie, head of the program since 1992.

Keating, admitted to the Bar in 1991, has worked for Public Defender for almost his entire career, working in the program’s Keene, Littleton and Orford offices. Two years ago, eager for a change of pace, Keating went to work for Dartmouth College’s Office of Legal Affairs. After a year, he returned to Public Defender as deputy director.

The board of directors of the Public Defender Program appointed Keating to replace Skibbie, who has accepted a position as associate research professor at the University of New Hampshire. "I’m very happy that Chris will be taking over the administration of the program," said Skibbie. "We have worked closely over the years and I’m confident in his ability to lead the program. He is a very talented, committed criminal defense lawyer and a skilled manager. He has a track record of working well with other agencies," he said.

The Public Defender Program is an independent organization that contracts with the state through the NH Judicial Council to provide indigent criminal defense statewide. The program has more than 140 employees, including 72 attorneys, making it one of the largest law firms in the state. Public Defender has nine offices (one in each county, excluding Coos, which is covered by attorneys from the Littleton office in Grafton) and, in conjunction with Franklin Pierce Law Center, also runs the Appellate Defender Program at FPLC. (A search continues for a new director for the Appellate Defender Program to fill the vacancy created by the appointment of longtime director James E. Duggan to the NH Supreme Court.)

Keating said that attracting and retaining high-quality personnel and legal talent is both the strength and the continuing challenge of the NH Public Defender’s Office. The program has succeeded in attracting quality law-school graduates and, in the past few years, several veteran attorneys, according to Keating. "The addition of these folks has been a real shot in the arm for the program. It says really good things about the quality of work we do," he said.

Keating said that a recent development in Public Defender has been the creation of a "litigation support group" that allows defenders to tap the knowledge of peers within the program who have special expertise in certain areas of the law, such as search-and-seizure law or mental-health issues as they affect defendants.

Skibbie, a career public defender, makes the move to academia as an associate research professor at UNH. He will be working with the newly established "Justice, Law and Society Project," part of the Justice Works criminal justice project. Skibbie will continue work he has already undertaken while at NHPD on evaluating and improving the quality of indigent defense programs nationwide. Other issues the UNH project will be exploring may include the interplay between juvenile justice and the education system, and computer privacy as it relates to court records.

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