Commissioner Lesley Briones has appointed Porscha Natasha Brown to the Managed Assigned Counsel board. 

Brown has been a Public Defender since 2016, and currently works as an Assistant Public Defender in Harris County.

She graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in Criminal Justice from Sam Houston State in 2011, received her law degree from Thurgood Marshall School of Law in 2015, and her Master’s in Public Administration from University of Texas in Arlington in 2018. She is a proud graduate of the National Gideon’s Promise Core Public Defender Training Program. She is also a member of the State Bar of Texas Committee for Matters affecting the Poor; she has worked to coordinate trainings with Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDC) for young attorneys; been a mentor for various Public Defender groups; handled serious and complex felonies; tried criminal cases ranging from misdemeanors to murder and has been a speaker on a variety of Criminal Law matters locally and statewide.

The MAC Office partners with private attorneys acting as independent contractors to provide representation to people who cannot afford an attorney and are facing misdemeanor criminal charges in the County Criminal Court at Law. MAC ensures that all appointed attorneys are well-trained, prepared to respond to the needs of each case, and receive support from all available MAC Services (i.e., investigators, social workers, immigration resources).

Reporting directly to Commissioners Court, the MAC was created in 2020 with the purpose of establishing a method for appointing indigent cases so that judges are no longer involved. In all 254 Texas Counties, there are only four other counties that have a MAC Office: Lubbock County, Collin County, Travis County, and Bexar County. 

Meetings take place quarterly, on the third Wednesday of the month, at 2:00 PM.