Administration of Justice Bulletin #2025/02

Increasingly, public defender offices are bringing social workers in-house. Seeking to adopt a “holistic” approach to defense work, these offices rely on social workers (and others providing social work services) to help their clients in a variety of ways. Social workers can locate housing, find appropriate treatment for substance use disorder or mental illness, and improve client communication by building trust and sensitivity to clients’ needs. They address causes and consequences of a client’s involvement with the criminal justice system, attempting to break cycles of recidivism. Social workers may also bolster the argument for a mitigated sentence by gathering biographical information or providing opportunities for clients to improve their lives. In offices where social workers have worked alongside public defenders for decades, attorneys point to the benefits of inter-professional collaboration. The ultimate goal is for the client to receive effective legal representation complemented by social work support that goes beyond simply handling the pending case.

North Carolina is in the midst of a major expansion of its public defender system. As new public defender offices open throughout the state, chief public defenders are making decisions about how to staff their offices, and many are choosing to hire social workers.

Yet a common question arises when social workers are embedded in public defender offices: how should the inter-professional defense team navigate a situation, such as learning of child abuse, where mandatory reporting laws require notification to the local department of social services (DSS) or law enforcement? Should social workers comply with state statutes and follow their own ethical code by making a report? Or does the attorney’s obligation to keep client confidences and provide effective assistance of counsel “trump” the social worker’s duty to report? This dilemma is the subject of this bulletin.