Deirdre “Dee Dee” Fuller has been a practicing attorney for 28 years. She earned her JD/MBA from Loyola School of Law and Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana, respectively. She has experience in civil, domestic, and juvenile law, and civil service matters. In 2008, Dee Dee shifted her practice to include criminal defense with the Rapides Parish Public Defender’s Office. In 2016, she was chosen as the Chief Public Defender for the 129,648 residents of the 9 th Judicial District, making her the first African-American female Chief Public Defender in the State of Louisiana.
Dee Dee is member of several organizations including the Louis A. Martinet Society in Alexandria, the Public Defender Association of Louisiana (PDAL) where she is an active member of the Legislative Committee, the District Defender Advisory Council (DDAC), a board member of the Louisiana Appellate Project (LAP), the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), and the National Association of Public Defense (NAPD), to name a few. Currently, she is the President of the Public Defender Association of Louisiana, making her the first female African American to serve in that position.
Under Dee Dee’s leadership, the Rapides Parish Public Defender’s Office has been recognized in the “Warrior” magazine published by TheTrial Lawyers College located on Thunderhead Ranch in Wyoming, under the direction of renown criminal defense lawyer Gerry Spence. Her office has applied for and received scholarships from various national organizations that have allowed the felony and juvenile attorneys to receive criminal law training all over the United States. In 2019, Dee Dee was a participant in the Executive Leadership Institute held in Austin, Texas for public defense professionals and she also received a scholarship to attend the National Judicial Leadership Summit IV on Child Welfare in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Committed to the Sixth Amendment concept of the “Right to Counsel”, she tirelessly supported the campaign for unanimous jury verdicts in Louisiana. Dee Dee changed the environment of the 9th JDC and implemented a “teamwork” model to service every client. Lawyers no longer go to trial solo, instead a “trial team” (1st and 2nd chair attorneys, an investigator, and the felony coordinator) attends all trials. Despite state funding shortfalls, she has managed to provide attorneys with the materials necessary to perform at optimum level, such as current Criminal and Children’s Code books, and research access through Westlaw. Furthermore, she implemented the annual “State of the IDB Address” which she conducts for local criminal justice stakeholders to apprise them of the financial and administrative challenges and successes of the Public Defender’s Office.
Additionally, clients now have the ability to complete IDB applications electronically on the public computer located in the office lobby. She updated and integrated the office computer system to allow for more expedient client assistance. Dee Dee’s office is one of four Public Defender Offices in Louisiana chosen to participate in a pilot program for Title IV-E federal funding for the Parent Representation Reimbursement Project. She has used this federal funding to hire a Client Advocate for parents of children involved in juvenile court. Through her tireless efforts, Dee Dee has worked to steer her office towards providing “holistic” services clients. Though still in its infancy, her holistic model is being designed to fulfill the total needs of clients in the criminal justice system in Rapides Parish.
