City of Blaine hires a new public defender

The city of Blaine has hired a new public defender to provide legal representation for indigent criminal defendants.

The city has hired the Law Offices of Ziad Youssef, PLLC a.k.a. North County Public Defense for the remainder of 2019, with an option to extend an additional two years by mutual agreement. The compensation is a flat rate of $6,500 per month for most public defense services. Certain services, such as trying a case in court, have added fees which are per incident.

The city, which is required by law to provide a public defender, issued a request for proposals (RFP) in February for proposals seeking responses from both private law firms and public agencies.

According to the RFP, the city anticipates assigning the new public defender an average of 10 cases per month. “The number of assigned indigent defendants and the resulting trials are dependent on the unique facts and circumstances of any particular case and time period. The types of cases the selected public defender shall be responsible for include gross misdemeanor, misdemeanor and probation cases.”

Two proposals were submitted but the other response was an incomplete response.

According to his website, Ziad Youssef is one of Whatcom County’s leading criminal defense attorneys with over 12 years’ of experience covering DUI, personal injury, infraction and criminal defense cases.