Robert L. Spangenberg
President

Robert L. Spangenberg has been conducting research and providing technical assistance on civil and criminal justice system-related topics for over 25 years. Mr. Spangenberg began his legal career as a trial attorney, handling civil and criminal cases in state and federal courts. Subsequently, he directed a neighborhood legal services program, the Boston Legal Assistance Project, for eight and a half years before joining Abt Associates as Deputy Director of its Law and Justice Division in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Widely regarded as a national expert on justice delivery systems to the poor, Mr. Spangenberg left Abt Associates to form TSG in 1985. Since that time, Mr. Spangenberg has been involved in numerous national, state and local indigent defense systems studies, as well as overseeing the only two national studies of indigent defense services on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice.

David J. Newhouse
Management Information Systems Analyst

David Newhouse is an attorney with a J.D. and M.S.L. from Vermont Law School. Mr. Newhouse has been responsible for all computer-related requests received by The Spangenberg Group since 1994. He has extensive knowledge regarding technology issues, and has created various on-line data processing systems, computerized models for case-weighting studies as well as interfaces to project staffing and resource needs.

Mr. Newhouse has a national reputation for accessing data from old, out-dated systems and performing data analysis from a variety of case management systems. Mr. Newhouse has been involved in six of TSG’s case-weighting studies and was the Chief Data Specialist on case-weighting studies in Maricopa County, Arizona; Pima County, Arizona; King County, Washington; and the state of Tennessee.

Aside from his work with The Spangenberg Group, Mr. Newhouse has also worked as a Computer Resource Consultant for Vermont Legal Aid and as a Fiscal Analyst for the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office.

Jennifer W. Riggs
Senior Reseach Associate

Jennifer Riggs has been employed at The Spangenberg Group since February 2002. Ms. Riggs has been conducting research and evaluating indigent defense systems, both at the state and local levels. She assisted in the statewide evaluation of indigent defense in Georgia and has been assisting in the follow-up study to assess the impact in Georgia of the Supreme Court's recent expansion of the right to counsel in Alabama v. Shelton. Ms. Riggs has conducted evaluations of indigent defense programs in Washington State, both in Pierce County and the City of Spokane. She has also been working on indigent defense case-weighting studies in two Arizona counties. These studies will result in workload standards for the two systems and assist in improving the delivery of indigent defense services.

Prior to working with The Spangenberg Group, Ms. Riggs practiced law as a public defender in New Hampshire. In addition, Ms. Riggs has worked at several large metropolitan indigent defense organizations, including Brooklyn Defender Services and the Defender Association of Philadelphia. Internationally, Ms. Riggs has conducted research for and provided assistance to Liberty, a human rights and civil liberties organization in London, England. Ms. Riggs has also conducted research for and assisted the Bulawayo Legal Projects Centre, a human rights and legal services organization in Zimbabwe.

Merritt A. Dattel
Research Associate

Ms. Dattel joined The Spangenberg Group in August of 2007 as Research Associate. In this position, Ms. Dattel is responsible for conducting factual and legal research and writing of indigent defense services in various states and counties as well as gathering information for systemic litigation projects. Ms. Dattel recently served as project manager and principal author of a management review of Solano County, California and contributed substantially to a study of the appellate defense office in South Carolina. Currently, Ms. Dattel is involved in writing the historical section of a report on the national right to counsel in indigent defense cases as well as assisting in the review of indigent defense systems in several counties across the country.

Prior to working at The Spangenberg Group, Ms. Dattel served as a student attorney in the Suffolk University Law School, Disability Advocacy Clinic, representing low income adults and children with disabilities in accessing health care, rights to education, employment and receipt of government benefits. Ms. Dattel has interned at various government and non-profit agencies including Greater Boston Legal Services, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and Community Catalyst. She also served as an officer on two journals while at Suffolk Law School, the Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy and the Journal of Health & Biomedical Law, which published her policy comment, "A Game of Hide and Seek: A Critique of the Free Care System of Nonprofit Hospitals in Massachusetts" in its Summer 2006 edition. Ms. Dattel has also received several outstanding honors including the John E. Fenton Public Service Award and the National Association of Women Judges Access to Justice Scholarship. Ms. Dattel graduated cum laude from Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts and is admitted to practice law in Massachusetts.

Rebecca Desilets
Research Assistant

Rebecca Desilets joined The Spangenberg Group in December 2006. During her time with The Spangenberg Group, Ms. Desilets has contributed to several studies evaluating the delivery of indigent defense services including an ongoing statewide study in Tennessee, national-level reports conducted on behalf of the ABA Bar Information Program, and program-specific evaluations of the Travis County, Texas Mental Health Public Defender and the Public Defender in Solano County, California. Ms. Desilets is also a regular contributor to The Spangenberg Report. Prior to working at TSG, Ms. Desilets volunteered with the Americorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) program in Southeastern Utah. Ms. Desilets received her B.A. in Sociology from Binghamton University in upstate New York.

Sarah Mann
Office Administrator

Sarah Mann joined The Spangenberg Group in November of 2007 as the Office Administrator and is responsible for handling general office duties. Sarah received her B.A. in English and Psychology from the University of Massachusetts in Boston.

Michael Schneider
Of Counsel

Mr Schneider is a partner in three-member Boston law firm engaging in state and federal criminal and civil litigation practice. He handles a diverse portfolio of criminal appellate and post-conviction matters in state and federal courts, as well as criminal and immigration matters with an international human rights dimension. Since 1998, Mr. Schneider has worked in the international unit of TSG’s research and consulting firm. His responsibilities include work on an international manual on legal aid and indigent criminal defense systems cataloguing the legal systems and legal aid organizations of other countries, and providing widely useable training materials for foreign legal professionals. He also conducted a performance audit for the public defender program in Cambodia on behalf of US/AID. Mr. Schneider also participates in domestic technical assistance projects, including: conducting a statewide audit of the Kentucky Public Advocate; and, an assessment of Pierce County (Tacoma), Washington indigency screening and cost-recovery program.

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