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Lawmakers are likely to consider next session increasing the size of the board that oversees the Office of the Public Defender, the chairman of a Senate committee said Thursday.

Discussion of oversight follows the August firing of Nancy Forster by the three-member board of trustees that oversees the office after a clash over what programs to fund.

After a hearing Tuesday, members of the Judicial Proceedings Committee seemed amenable to increasing the size of the board, possibly to as many as 11 or 13 members.

"There seemed to be some consensus that the board ought to be expanded and redefined," committee Chairman Brian Frosh said. "I think there are governance issues that everybody is thinking about."

At the hearing, Forster said Maryland alone has only three advisers for its public defender's office, and she suggested adding more.

A larger board would prevent one member from "strong-arming" others to get the majority needed to fire the public defender, she said.

Forster, who spent 25 years with the office, including eight as its director, lost her job when the board voted 2-1 to dismiss her on Aug. 20.

During her testimony, Forster said the board was trying to micromanage the office.

Board Chairman T. Wray McCurdy, a Baltimore lawyer, said the board was trying to shift office resources away from social workers that have been added to the office and toward more lawyers.

Indigent clients can't afford to choose between a social worker and an attorney who has the time and resources to focus on their case.

"We have a really growing caseload," McCurdy said. "We went up 4 percent as an agency in the year just ended. It's all hands on deck."

Board members are volunteers, and increasing the membership would not raise costs, said Frosh (D-Dist. 18) of Bethesda.

Sen. Alex Mooney, a Judicial Proceedings Committee member, said increasing the board's size would strengthen geographic diversity. He supports an 11 member board.

The committee should delve deeper into Forster's firing, said Mooney (R-Dist. 3) of Urbana, who added that the Democrat-controlled legislature held hearings into firings by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R).

"I think we should look at why she was fired," he said. "It's kind of a big deal."

Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-Dist. 20) of Takoma Park, who also serves on the committee, said, "Every firing seems political to the person being fired."