One of Maine’s first public defenders will lead the statewide agency responsible for representing criminal defendants and parents accused of abuse or neglect and who can’t afford their own attorneys.

Frayla Tarpinian will serve as executive director of the Maine Commission on Public Defense Services, the agency announced Friday.

Tarpinian is currently district defender for the Capitol Region Public Defender’s office, the first brick-and-mortar public defense site in Maine. She begins her new role Monday.

“I’m eager to get started,” Tarpinian said on a Friday evening phone call. “I’m really invested in making sure that everyone in Maine who’s entitled to representation gets representation.”

Maine was the last state in the nation to hire public defenders in 2022, when lawmakers agreed to launch a small, roaming office of attorneys employed by the state. There are now roughly 30 public defenders working statewide. The state still relies mostly on private attorneys who agree to represent low-income defendants and are reimbursed by the state.

Tarpinian is replacing Jim Billings, who announced his plans to resign in August. Billings did not respond to a request to speak about his successor Friday.

She is taking over as Maine struggles to find enough lawyers to represent hundreds of defendants and parents who are constitutionally entitled to an attorney at the state’s expense.

“The criminal justice system in Maine is at a breaking point, and I look forward to working with system partners to address the current crisis,” Tarpinian said in a written statement from the commission.

The commission has warned that it will run out of money to pay defense attorneys next spring, citing a $13 million shortfall.

News of the shortfall has already caused some attorneys to take on fewer cases, she said. Even in the face of a budget crisis, attorneys are still expected to show up for their clients, she said, but many smaller firms, which the state relies on for indigent defense, are unable to absorb delayed payments.

“These folks are not able to sustain the work in these cases if they are not going to be paid,” Tarpinian said. “It’s asking small businesses and individuals to shoulder too much of the state’s responsibility.”

But Tarpinian said she’s been “heartened” by support from the Legislature, pointing to investment in new public defender offices in recent years as one example of growth. She hopes to continue that work, building new offices throughout the state, and ensuring that the parents unit is fully staffed.

“I don’t believe that there’s a magic bullet. This problem is not going to be solved next week, or next year,” she said. “But with time and patience, I really do believe we can get to a place where the system is functional.”

Meanwhile, Maine’s highest court is considering whether to release some defendants who don’t have a lawyer from jail, after the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine sued the commission in 2022.

The ACLU said the state was failing to ensure effective representation. In January, Superior Court Justice Michaela Murphy found the state was failing to ensure any representation at all to hundreds of people, which she said was a constitutional violation.

Her order has been appealed.

Commissioner Taylor Kilgore said Tarpinian is taking the helm during a challenging period, noting both the lawsuit and budget crunch, but called her a “creative problem solver” who can make the most of limited resources.

“She’s got a long history of having really great leadership skills, finding ways to advocate and collaborate with all different system partners, which is really important in a job like the executive director,” Kilgore said.

Tarpinian graduated from Boston University School of Law in 2006 and has been an advocate in the criminal justice system since 2007, according to a statement from the commission. Before she was district defender, Tarpinian was a prosecutor and private defense attorney.