You Can’t Build on Shaky Ground: Laying the Foundation for Indigent Defense Reform Through Values-Based Recruitment, Training, and Mentoring

by JONATHAN A. RAPPING

On August 21, 2005, twenty-four new public defenders gathered in Vidalia, Georgia to begin an intensive, three-week training period. They graduated from seventeen different law schools in twelve different states. More than thirty years separated the oldest from the youngest. They were male and female; African-American, Caucasian, and Latino. Some were born and raised in Georgia while others had no previous connection to the state. But they shared a commitment to join an exciting movement to reform indigent defense. Before enacting legislation to establish a state-wide public defender system aimed at improving the quality of representation for indigent defendants, Georgia was among a long list of states known for the abysmal quality of representation provided to their poorest citizens in criminal cases. These twenty-four lawyers would soon be practicing in seventeen public defenders’ offices across the state,3 on a mission to help change that dubious reputation. Most had never met one another before that day, but they would soon share a bond, anchored by their commitment to indigent defense.

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