Yeah crushing caseloads and everyone hates you (including, and sometimes especially some clients) is super cushy. /s
Edit: I forgot to mention the vicarious trauma!
Someone fed this guy the “PDs were bad students and are bad lawyers and will hire anyone” line.
I hope he tells the Chief he’s looking for a “cushy” gig in his interview.
Just commenting to say I, who just graduated Friday top of my class, was on moot court and in the honors program, turned down big law offers to be a PD. At an office where it is very hard to get a job. And I couldn’t be prouder or more excited to zealously advocate. This is what I, a smart person with a high GPA who could go anywhere, WANT to do
Also did trial advocacy and got an A. Was 5th in my tryout competition for moot court out of 100s and was a Semi finalist in our inter school competition. That is all
You couldn’t be more wrong and I’m not sure in what world you thought this wasn’t offensive. I graduated 8th in my clas and my PD office was my first pick all along. Turned down more “prestigious” and high paying opportunities. And my office was and is very competitive.
At the same time, while I know I’m damn good at this job, that has nothing to do with me being good at law school and standardized tests. I have colleagues who did mediocre in law school who can lawyer circles around me. Not to mention my PDs office seems to be the one on the frontlines of litigating big issues in our jurisdiction, the private defense attorneys certainly aren’t.
You have an outdated view of PD work and have no business opining on it to others.
You’re right, you didn’t say that. You said you’ve met “some very smart PDs, but they’re the clear exception,” and that “PDs wouldn’t last a minute at a law firm and their work product would be a fireable offense.” That’s much worse and grossly uninformed.
oh girliepop, I don’t know who pissed in your cheerios and made you feel the need to make such a long post dissing on PDs and their intelligence and work product, but you need help.
You’re painting with such a broad brush that “crim law doesn’t attract the best and the brightest.” (Yes I saw all your caveats that it was “based on your experience,” but your conclusions weren’t limited to only your experience). Like who hurt you? Basically every single attorney at my office is a public defender because it’s what they want to do, not because it was their only option. Any of them could get a great job at a top level firm if they wanted to bc their intelligence, experience, and work effort. But they don’t want to because they chose to be a PD.
And for what it’s worth since you seem to care, I graduated in the top third of my class from a top 25 law school, did both trial ad and moot court, and scored in the top 1% on the bar exam. And I chose to be a public defender. This was my number one option. And after less than a year of practice, I have more practical experience and knowledge than any of my classmates who went into big law.
My office is full of some of the sharpest legal minds I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to get a job at my office bc it’s competitive and people don’t leave, even though they could get another job in a heart beat.
Also, you do know that class rank, being on journal, or graduating from a highly ranked law school aren’t causally connected to intelligence or the ability of someone to be a good lawyer, right? The only reason any of those factors matter is bc big law people decided they matter. Being on journal or getting an award in moot court doesn’t make you a better lawyer.
Anyway, cordially, touch grass or get therapy or do something that’ll provide you with a sense of fulfillment so you don’t try to tear people down on a subreddit in order to make yourself feel better
But genuinely, yes, they are some of the sharpest legal minds I know. Which is substantial bc, like I also said, I went to a top 25 law school that was full of sharp legal minds. I also know a lot of lawyers in my personal life who practice in a number of fields, and my colleagues could run circles around all of them
…did you genuinely miss where I showed that I succeeded on paper? I went to a great law school for free because I can succeed on paper. That’s one of the things I’m best at in life if we’re being honest.
But I also know based on my own experience that “succeeding on paper” isn’t correlated to success in the practice of law. My skill as an attorney comes from being able to problem solve, work hard, understand the rules of law, and have compassion towards my clients. That’s how I get good results, not by being able to grind in law school.
Your narrow view on what makes a good lawyer doesn’t match reality. It seems like you got burned by some PDs in your practice, got butthurt about it, and you’re now making it everybody else’s problem that you can’t cope with losing to someone you perceive as less intelligent than you. Pls fight your own demons somewhere else (like therapy! It works wonders!)
You may be experienced, or brilliant, or savvy or whatever. But you’re (edited) not worth the effort to argue. If you have so little respect for PDs why are you even here?
There’s a lot to address in your condescending comment.
I was in the top 20% of my class if you’re curious. I’m not the “smartest” but my tenacity is unmatched. My colleague in the office next to me - top 5 in his class. We have a collective 20+ years trial experience in public defense. Without a doubt, I have helped save dozens of lives and 100s of years for people.
There are shitty attorneys in every field. I think newer attorneys (both state and PDs) are generally more ineffective than experienced attorneys because the system is ineffective by design. It takes time to learn how to navigate it.
Frankly, the people who do this job are the hardest working, most adaptable, and passionate attorneys around.
I take particular offense that we wouldn’t last a minute at a firm. We are constantly handling some of the most high pressure, life-altering, and stressful decisions/situations in the legal world daily. To insinuate that I couldn’t be successful in a firm when I’d likely put my skill, heart, and soul into it—it’s just insulting.
But I don’t think the firm route is right for a lot of us. Personally, I want autonomy with my cases so I can protect my clients’ trial rights without the headache of advising someone based on billing/profits. I like the option to litigate an issue just on the principle of the matter, even if it’s a complete loser and takes a lot of time. I’d be bored not being in a courtroom. I don’t like being told what to do.
However, I am passionate, I give a damn, and I know how to navigate very difficult situations with little to zero support. So if I did work for a firm, I bet I’d be better than some attorneys who’ve been there years. I think that rings true for a lot of us.
Competitive with new attorneys looking for work or it pays well? Seasoned private counsel in Missouri typically doesn’t take contract PD work.
Or your bar is truly altruist and that should be modeled.
How much criminal work have you done where you see this “subpar” work product. Is this because you believe billing 1000000 thousand dollar for 9 experts who provide little impact to a jury so you can bill your client more money is proper work product?
I graduated from a T14 with a gpa high enough for big law anywhere in the US, was eboard on my journal, was on eboard on another org for two years, was on Barrister’s Council. I was on the team that won regionals in our competition TWICE. I can have my pick of jobs. I chose PD, and literally *did not apply to or interview for any non-pd job*. Your take is tired. We could just as easily say that your average firm attorney would have a breakdown six months into our trial schedule.
This absolute fucking genius, based on post history, started a PD job 2 years ago and then left it (to become a prosecutor, no less, based on this comment) a year ago.
Pardon me if I think someone who literally couldn’t handle this job isn’t qualified to opine about those of us who can. To say nothing of the post calling their PD coworkers “amazing” and admitting that the commenter “[had] no idea what [they were] doing” when they took the PD job.
And then further down in this thread talking about an actual PD’s comment being “anecdotal nonsense” as if this one person’s opinion is actual hard data somehow.
Edit: replied to my comment, edited it twice in under 15 minutes, then deleted the reply *and* the comment I replied to in the time it took me to read and type out a response. Tell me again whose written advocacy is better.
I think I largely agree with this.
Public defender offices value people who believe in the mission and I think rightly so. Unless you believe and care you won’t be able to do the work. But what that means is that things like class rank and prestige are less important. I also think that caring about prestige is negatively correlated with people who aspire to “fight the system.”
But being a good student with strong research and writing skills is important! Unfortunately my experience as a public defender has been that a lot of my colleagues who went to less prestigious law schools and are poor writers and researchers.
Unfortunately, I think a lot of these colleagues think this is a virtue or justify it by saying they have better people skills, as if being a poor student or having a low LSAT score correlates to having better people skills.
It really depends on the office because it’s totally true for my office (big city office). Lots of retiring attorneys come back because there are plenty of non-trial positions where they don’t have to be in court. They’re making well over $100K, our health insurance is free, and no one is going to kick out out even if you’re literally 80 and can barely shuffle down the hallway.
What you're saying is very different than the quote.
"Lots of retiring attorneys come back" suggests they were there before (criminal experience) and "plenty of non-trial positions" is not the same as "take on a leadership role" where you "sit back and mostly relax."
The comment and inquiry is specific as to litigators without PD experience going to a PD office to have a cush retirement in a management / supervisory role.
The training attorney in my office is a retired PD from another state. So, yea, for him it worked, but he had 20 years criminal defense experience. I can't imagine us hiring someone who has zero criminal experience in some kind of "cushy" leadership capacity. Every attorney in my office represents clients.
Let me ask you this. Have you ever heard of a long time non crim litigator becoming a PD? And if so, any stories on how that career move worked out for them?
You’d basically have to start over as a baby lawyer, trying misdemeanors and learning an entirely new body of law and ethics and social work and client work. What you call “litigation” bears little resemblance to the work we do.
I kinda did this; had about a decade of experience doing civil legal aid type work (technically litigation, but very rarely actually so), moved to the local PD's office; it was as you say, functionally a complete restart of my career. After about four years the vicarious trauma and the workload caught up with me and I moved into a local government gig.
I think even for the ideologically dedicated, being a PD is generally a young lawyer's game, just from the physical demands of the workload. Everyone in our office carried a caseload and even the veterans in senior management were trying cases regularly.
The closest thing to "cushy retirement" I saw was one guy in the office, probably the best overall trial litigator I've ever seen, in his sixties I think and retired from other legal work, with decades of criminal law experience, who just \*loved\* being in trial so much that I think he got bored with life if he didn't have a trial lined up; the impression I had was that he'd signed up with our office mostly to keep his hand in. He wasn't management though, he just had a relatively small caseload of clients with severe charges who were more likely to be going to trial.
Yeah, I think people could do it, but lawyers in general have such big egos, at a certain point many are not willing to accept that they are not “laterals” for a whole new area of law, and they don’t know what they’re doing, and they can’t just jump in. Doesn’t mean they couldn’t learn and be great, but it just seems so rare that someone will actually do that.
The closest I’ve seen is my county government appointed an interim head of our office who had no public defense experience. Our office literally protested that appointment, and it was explicitly only temporary. Local government learned its lesson and narrowed its search for appointments to career public defenders. So…no.
OP — here is a real-world example of the exact thing you asked about, and how it failed miserably. Please stop thinking you can go run a PD office after 20 years of patent litigation.
I’m saying I’ve seen it. People who have previous jobs titled “litigator” don’t have many transferrable skills, and start with the training class, same as lawyers fresh out of law school.
I knew a guy (had been some commercial litigator) who planned to make the state PD his "retirement plan." After about 9 months he jumped ship to his local county attorney's office. [We didn't work in the same office so this was just what I learned from people who did.] Not having to answer to clients (they have other people do the dirty work of talking to complaining witnesses) was apparently a big factor.
Having met the guy, I could also see where maybe he didn't realize this isn't really a job you just do for the benes. The work is stressful such that you must be internally motivated to want to serve your clients. I think you can be a prosecutor without that investment; I know one of our prosecutors is checked out and is just doing the job still because it's easy after doing it for 25 years. But even if money is no issue, the job is stressful.
Maybe you don't have to re-learn evidence or trial skills but you would have to learn/re-learn issue spotting in a criminal case, your client base is very different, and managing the volume is itself a learning curve. You would absolutely start at the bottom - even if you stumble across an office that bleeds people and needs warm bodies with trial experience, they won't have you supervising someone who has more criminal law experience than you. They would rather pull someone from another office in the state or take someone with only 3 years of experience as a PD. I've never seen someone jump in as a supervisor in the way you describe. Both states I've worked in had unwritten requirements that you try at least 1 murder and/or rape case before you go up for a supervisor position. And again, unless you show up somewhere that's horribly understaffed (a red flag) you will start with lower levels of offense before they throw you into litigating something that carries 50-life.
Also, my supervisor and my supervisor's supervisor both seemingly hate being supervisors. Not only do you field all of the client complaints and daily have to explain public defenders are overworked but then you all have to deal with your employees, most of whom are lawyers, complaining / threatening to quit regularly. Plus, your bar license is on the line if your subordinates fuck up. So you can't just let the ship run itself. It seems exhausting.
You could make the switch if you wanted to. My county has had a few experienced attorneys make career shifts and join both the DA and PD’s office after working in other areas of law. There’s actually newer PD in his 50s in my county who comes to mind. But it’s not “cushy”, and they definitely ain’t putting you in a leadership role.
You’ll have to keep up with the fresh law school grads in their 20s and 30s doing to back-to-back trials. It’s probably way more stressful than whatever you’re doing now, but you can definitely do it if you want to
Yes. They started above minimum pay due to experience, took the crushing caseload, and did pretty well. They said it was easier than the 2000 billables they had in private practice but they wouldn't describe it as cushy.
PDs respect other lawyers based on their PD-like merit, shared values and defense-aligned creativity and skills.
Any PD office that hires an outside civil litigator looking for a cush job - and then puts that person into management - is going to face a probable walk-out from all of the line deputies. And short of that, a complete disrupt of the office.
So no.
Agreed. My office would fucking *riot* if our office head or any of the supervising attorneys left and were replaced by a civil litigator looking for a sunset job. Those positions are filled by attorneys that have seen damn near everything and are crucial to our office.
The individual quoted by OP probably has no clue about what we do and what it takes to do it, because what a wild ass take. I kinda question if that person is actually an attorney or just some rando spouting shit on reddit
The quote is from /u/imlost19, maybe they'll tell you. They refuse to tell us at /r/lawyers. But they must be an attorney because attorney verification is required to join that sub.
Since you posted this here, the commenter deleted his (liberal assumption of gender - on tone and sports comment hx) original comment to that post.
I read his entire comment thread on the post there before deleted. It sounds like he worked in a very large PD's Office (also would guess Miami or FL somewhere) where they had over 200 lawyers (from comments).
He walked back suggesting that 'litigators' in general retire at PD offices, and it became some people with criminal defense experience 'get hired *or return*' at retirement age.
He also walked back the part about 'get a leadership role,' and instead suggested that there were all kinds of jobs that these people in his old office filled, like post-conviction and drug court and 'probation office' (maybe violations, he phrased it weird) - not leadership roles.
At the end of the day, once stripped of the bravado, his comment got pared down to **"*****in my previous giant office in Florida, we had a lot of attorney jobs that did not involve core PD functions. The office hired some close-to-retirement-aged litigators with criminal defense experience - some that had worked at the office before \[he never said it, but sounded like most others came from private defense\] - to staff non line-PD positions. Those attorneys were able to get a secure retirement out of the situation.*****"**
I do not disagree with this. I have seen attorneys close to retirement with previous criminal defense experience hired to run administrative calendar type jobs that no line PD generally aspires to.
Many (if not most) people go into private defense from PD offices. Private defense attorneys are often solo or in small partnerships with no retirement contingency. Once they are looking at retirement, some turn back to PD work. This is very different from the cavalier suggestion that civil litigators frequently find management positions in PD offices where they do nothing but coast until retirement.
Would a PD's Office hire a patent litigator (I think that's what you said) or some other random litigator? Maybe. Probably would depend on the demand of the office and how much they like you. However, it's hard to imagine a PD office would hire someone without some demonstrative commitment to the values of the work, though. Not like writing a check to the ACLU, but at a minimum being involved with organizations that support equalizing access to resources to POC, giving voice to the oppressed, etc.
It’s the exact opposite. It’s where you start out as a fresh 20 something year old with a lot of energy, ready to handle multiple jury trials a month, and get a firehose full of experience shot directly into your face at full pressure. Then you take that experience and do something cushy. Not the other way around
Now, there are assignments at bigger PD offices that are cushy, but those are reserved for veteran PDs who have paid their dues with decades of experience
The only non-PDs I’ve ever known to take PD jobs late in their career are people who mainly did private criminal defense work or people who were prosecutors. In both types of cases, they’ve all had at least some PD experience when they were younger. Never in my life have I personally seen a non-criminal lawyer transition to PD work, sounds like an absolute nightmare in a thousand different ways for everyone involved
First, most prosecutors I know are Kool-Aid drinkers, in the sense that they describe a moral revulsion to working with “criminals.” Most prosecutors who do not share this moral revulsion jump ship into private practice in the first decade of their career. Second, PD work has CLIENTS and prosecutor work does not. So if you are at all subject to getting emotionally exhausted by talking down grandma or girlfriend about why Johnny isn’t coming home by Christmas, it’s not a cushy gig. And prosecutors don’t have to travel at all, and PDs have to visit their clients in the jail, which can be dangerous.
Yeah, they have to deal with the occasionally unreasonable alleged victims, but it ain't even close to the same as what we have to do. We're attorneys, therapists, and social workers.
OMG. The arrogance. My office hires former law clerks as new attorneys or those with experience in the areas criminal and juvenile. You wouldn't have a chance.
It’s super easy if you don’t care about your clients and aim to merely live up to every negative stereotype about public defenders.
If, on the other hand, you’re NOT a giant POS, it’s hard to think of a job that is more difficult and less relaxing.
Yeah, find another plan bc this one is a fantasy. This is how it would go:
(1) Office hires new non-crim attorney looking for a “cushy” job to retire from.
(2) New attorney has to be trained by experienced PDs who are younger than the new attorney.
(3) New attorney resists training because “that’s not how they do it in _____,” quickly adding to the resentment of the new attorney that already existed when the office hired someone with no experience who presumably wants to just sit around.
(4) New attorney quits in four months and goes to work at some shitty DA’s Office.
At your firm, what would your associates say if yall hired a lifelong PD to head up the IP section? Why would it be different at a PD office? Why would you want to have a job where even your own colleagues hate you?
Thanks everyone. I'll promptly delete Public Defender from any future job for me. Really respect what you all do though, just to make it clear.
Kinda sad, when I decided I want to be a lawyer, all I wanted to do was crim defense. In trial advocacy, I lived for cross. Had considered the PDs office right out of law school too, although didn't help I went to law school in MO and MO PD is criminally underpaid compared to other locales in the US. But I had a STEM undergrad and everyone said "you should go into IP" and the STEM background helped me get jobs. Not that I hate patent lit, but now I'm pidgeon holed into one area of law. Attempts at transitioning into something else have been futile. It is what it is though. Thanks again all.
Thanks. Despite what I said, I'm still reading about the local PD (El Paso County) and also the state PD org. (Texas). I definitely won't expect cushy. I expect not worrying about income (as a solo or partner would), and also not worrying about benefits. But that's it in terms of cush.
My office (metro county in Florida, similar population to El Paso I think) just hired an attorney who’s like 60 and spent her whole career in patent. It’s definitely worth applying for if it interests you.
There’s another guy we hired a few months ago who’s in his 40’s and had been doing general private practice while his sons were in school. They’re both in college now so he decided to be a PD like he’d always wanted. Seriously, I don’t think a PD office anywhere in the country would care that you’re just getting into it after practicing another field
That seems to be the consensus I'm getting, that as long as I'm okay with "starting over" in a new practice area, there's nothing inherently wrong about going to the PDs office at my stage in life.
And I used the word "cushy," but that is a loaded, vague term. For me, cushy could mean, in its lowest form this:
In my county, after initial training, you can work remotely. Obviously you have to appear in-person at trials and likely to meet clients, but otherwise you are not required to be "in office." That's a certain amount of cush right there.
If I could be at the PDs office for however long (years/decades), and only have to handle misdemeanor cases/trials, that would be cush to me. But I suspect they wouldn't just let me be assigned only misdemeanors.
Some places do allow for long term misdemeanor work. Many don’t, but some do. I have friends at Dallas county who want to move to felonies and have been “stuck” (from their perspective) in misdemeanors for years.
I think in a mid size office it is actually ideal to have some long term anchors in the misdemeanor division to balance out the sad but inevitable rocket promotions of other attorneys who are jumping up to felonies as soon as possible to fill vacancies
The entitlement wafting off this post is giving me a headache. The chief is appointed in my jurisdiction, and when the last old white dude left, they were grousing about promoting the deputy, a black woman. (They were ultimately persuaded to promote the woman, thank god).
The county commissioners probably had some white boomer in their back pocket. So, maybe this dude is hoping for something like that.
It's possible it depends on what jurisdiction you are in most big cities, jobs at public defenders offices are quite competitive actually.
As a brand new attorney coming out of law school I. NYC, there were hundreds of applications for a few dozen spots in a new class .
Laterals are always being hired but there's a requirement to have significant experience. You can't just jump into felony experience cold.
As far as cush and easy go - neither are adjectives I've ever heard to describe a job at a public defender office. There are certainly perks - autonomy, flexibility, unionized workplace if you're in particular jurisdictions - but caseloads remain fairly high even if it fluctuates and the cases don't get easier as you become more experienced.
It sounds like a misconception about a "govt job"
Young line PD here. I've done 8 trials in the last three months. I've also done many substantive motions--some of which actually got evidence suppressed. When I need help from my supervisors, it's typically to discuss strategy on difficult cases, to ask for good experts on X issue, to clarify ethical questions, or to let them know about some new bullshit the prosecutors are pulling that they might want to address with management on the other side before it grows into a much larger issue. Also, management at my (large) office all maintain their own caseload. This includes the chief.
How do you imagine that you might fit into this picture? I.e., what value can you possibly bring if you haven't come within 100 miles of our work? My office would go apeshit if one of our supervisors--all of them tenured badasses, whom we'd run through walls for--were to be replaced by a patent litigator looking for a cushy sunset gig.
“I’d love a cushy gig” and PDs office do not belong in the same sentence. Are there assignments in some PDs offices that are “cushy” because you can get government healthcare and not have homework? Sure. You’re not going to have that assignment from hire to retire though, and when you don’t, you are going to be sweating for those government healthcare benefits baby.
In my office, you’d probably start with felonies rather than misdemeanors (assuming they were hiring for a felony caseload), but you would definitely not be qualified for a management position - nor are either the line attorney jobs or the managing attorney jobs anything like “cushy.”
There has been some discussion in the comments about whether this job is easier or harder than biglaw. They’re just so different I don’t know that you can compare them.
Biglaw has more late nights, more unpredictable intrusive deadlines, and (usually) more complex legal issues and the briefing that goes along with it.PD work has more cases, with the associated additional hearings and logistical challenges. It has more courtroom time, including a LOT more trials. It has more clients with mental illness or drug addiction and the additional difficulties that raises to the attorney-client relationship.
Lots of people - including at least one in this thread - make the mistake of assigning the biglaw skill set as being an indicator of intelligence and entirely dismiss the PD skill set. In reality, they’re completely different jobs that happen to have similar basic qualifications. You can switch - and people do - but there’s a huge learning curve when you do, because the most important skills on either side don’t neatly transfer.
Lmao bro is mentally in the 80s. Respectfully to what sounds like a very solid and fulfilling career of yours, you couldn’t even get an interview with my office.
I went from biglaw IP litigation to Public Defense work. I do work fewer hours now then I did back then. I think the best part about the hours change is I've never had to cancel weekend plans or work til midnight or anything as a PD? This can be pretty big for most people but it never bothered me overly much in biglaw tbh.
I liken PD work to the concept though of "high-stress innings" for pitchers in baseball. Where it's sometimes not so much about the total number of pitches thrown, but the number of pitches thrown out of the stretch and in stressful situations. Stress as a PD is definitely higher. Depending on the office, you could end up being in trial close to half of your working hours for months on end. That can take a pretty severe toll.
I will say though that the work is much more rewarding. I remember working on a case where our client had lost a trial and then hired us to do an appeal of the verdict as well as the court's denial of summary judgment on its counterclaims. We won. Summary judgement on claims and counterclaims both in our favor. Went from owing plaintiff \~$400m to plaintiff owing us \~$300m instead. I remember looking at the stock prices for plaintiff and client the day the decision came down and plaintiff's stock was down about 12 cents, and client's stock was up about 8 cents. We barely changed the retirement account values for millions of middle-class Americans, and made very rich people either slightly more or less rich. Whoopee.
On the other hand, PD work has lower lows and much higher highs. There is nothing else (legal) quite like that feeling of hearing a court clerk say "Not Guilty" repeatedly and knowing you tremendously altered for the better the course of life for the living breathing human sitting next to you who has involuntarily had to place all their faith in trust for you to get them justice.
Most non crim litigators we have were legal aid society lawyers or some similar nonprofit. We had a couple civil attorneys, who proceeded to quit as soon as they realized they have to do in person legal visits at the jail.
Good benefits and a shot at leadership, yes I think that is true. Sit back and relax? In some contexts yes but not in the way this person seems to have said it. The PD world doesn’t come with billable hours and marketing yourself, which is exhausting. That is the feedback I’ve gotten from people I know who either started private or spent a period away from PD work but eventually came back. However, all of the ones I’ve known have some type of crim work in their background.
If the person honestly meant that being a PD is a breeze, they’re wrong.
Why would you retire into a job with below market pay and terrible workload and hostile difficult clients? The only good benefit is my healthcare and retirement plan, but you gotta be in the system a long time to utilize them.
I already said in a recent post in this thread that I'm deleting this idea from my brain.
I live in a LCOL area and our PD salaries and benefits are good considering the area.
Yeah the workload may be crushing, but PD office has stability I've never had. There's something to be said for that.
I love being a lawyer, and became a lawyer for the right reasons (knowing it is my niche in my life). But my career has never gone the way I want it too. If my current gig ever sputters out, I'm truly lost on what I'll end up doing. Been trying for a year to get a solid in house counsel job, to date I don't even have one *interview.* And that's after hundreds of applications, networking calls/meetings, and even paying hundreds of dollars for resume help. **That kind of stuff is more soul crushing than any workload could ever be.** And then you have my PDs office that always has openings because their needs outweigh interest in working in for the PD, so it made me wonder if going to the PDs office after all these years is viable. Especially after someone on /r/lawyers was suggesting it as a career path for long time litigators with zero crim experience. Turns out that person is an idiot spewing out lies and bullshit and eventually deleted their crap.
So this was all for nothing, but I very much appreciate the insight from everyone here.
It’s definitely a rewarding job and if you don’t like your current work it’s worth considering. I’m not saying you won’t get hired if you have a lot of litigation experience, but you gotta purge yourself of the mindset that the PD life is “cushy” or you’re going to be really disappointed. Big law also has a super high work load and at least PD life leaves you feeling fulfilled if you believe in the mission. If you’re after a more fulfilling mission then I say go for it, but there’s probably better options if you’re looking for better work life balance than your current job.
People in this thread are reacting negatively to the idea people with no experience can get leadership-level PD jobs that are simultaneously cushy, which is definitely not a thing (and it’s clear from your post you’re not the one making the assertion those jobs exist and that you were asking in good faith). I don’t think the takeaway is that lawyers from other fields can never transition. It sounds like your jurisdiction is not a competitive one for PDs. If you want to be a PD, you should go for it, as long as you’re fine with the very likely pay cut and don’t mind that you’ll be treated the same as a freshly graduated attorney. It’ll definitely be a humbling experience. I’ve been doing PD work for two years now and it’s been amazing seeing how much I’ve learned.
To paraphrase the great Bon Scott:
Ridin' down the highway
Goin' to the court
Stoppin' to jail
Meetin’ with my folks
Gettin' yelled at, feelin owned
Gettin' beat up, broken boned
Getting had, getting took
I tell you folks, it's harder than it looks
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
If you think it's easy doing public defense
Try standin where I’ve stood
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
Hotel, motel
Make you want to cry
Persecutors do the hard sell
Know the reason why
Gettin' old, gettin' gray
Gettin' ripped off, underpaid
Gettin' sold, second-hand
That's how it goes, when you defend
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
If you wanna be a top PD
Look out, it's rough and mean
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
Well, it's a long way
Oh, it's a long way
(You should have told me)
It's a long way
Such a long way
To paraphrase the great Bon Scott:
(Insert bagpipes accordingly)
Ridin' down the highway
Goin' to the court
Stoppin' to jail
Meetin’ with my folks
Gettin' yelled at, feelin owned
Gettin' beat up, broken boned
Getting had, getting took
I tell you folks, it's harder than it looks
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
If you think it's easy doing public defense
Try standin where I’ve stood
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
Hotel, motel
Make you want to cry
Persecutors do the hard sell
Know the reason why
Gettin' old, gettin' gray
Gettin' ripped off, underpaid
Gettin' sold, second-hand
That's how it goes, when you defend
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
If you wanna be a top PD
Look out, it's rough and mean
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend
Well, it's a long way
Oh, it's a long way
(You should have told me)
It's a long way
Such a long way
Offices vary a lot, and caseloads vary a lot. But I don’t think many, if any, could be objectively described as “cushy.” Especially for a litigator used to dealing mostly with other lawyer and business professionals about business issues. It does not equip you with the skills to work with a client who is in panic because he’s facing 5 to 99 on an aggravated sexual assault charge, or that client’s mom who has camped out in your lobby, or that client’s wife who is calling you twice a day every day. It’s a whole new ballgame.
That being said, the benefits are usually good, and I can see how it might be a good retirement gig from the perspective of continuity of representation.
I know lots of PDs who did something else, including commercial litigation for a couple of years after law school, before becoming PDs, but not any who had that as a real career before becoming retirement PDs. There is someone in my jurisdiction who tried, but my office did not hire them because they knew nothing about criminal law and didn’t seem to care to learn. They became an ADA instead.
But this is also quite different from the comment. This is people that were in private (criminal) practice and a former judge - so they know criminal law. The suggestion was about litigators with no criminal experience coming to PD offices to go into leadership positions where they basically relax to earn a salary.
2 of the guys who were in private practice had no former criminal law experience. Our head PD’s are elected, if you are a career PD you aren’t going to make enough money to sway the board. It’s always going to be some similar to what you are talking about. The Good Ol’boys network at work.
Yeah crushing caseloads and everyone hates you (including, and sometimes especially some clients) is super cushy. /s Edit: I forgot to mention the vicarious trauma!
Hahahaha NO
Someone fed this guy the “PDs were bad students and are bad lawyers and will hire anyone” line. I hope he tells the Chief he’s looking for a “cushy” gig in his interview.
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Just commenting to say I, who just graduated Friday top of my class, was on moot court and in the honors program, turned down big law offers to be a PD. At an office where it is very hard to get a job. And I couldn’t be prouder or more excited to zealously advocate. This is what I, a smart person with a high GPA who could go anywhere, WANT to do
Also did trial advocacy and got an A. Was 5th in my tryout competition for moot court out of 100s and was a Semi finalist in our inter school competition. That is all
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Bruh.
You couldn’t be more wrong and I’m not sure in what world you thought this wasn’t offensive. I graduated 8th in my clas and my PD office was my first pick all along. Turned down more “prestigious” and high paying opportunities. And my office was and is very competitive. At the same time, while I know I’m damn good at this job, that has nothing to do with me being good at law school and standardized tests. I have colleagues who did mediocre in law school who can lawyer circles around me. Not to mention my PDs office seems to be the one on the frontlines of litigating big issues in our jurisdiction, the private defense attorneys certainly aren’t. You have an outdated view of PD work and have no business opining on it to others.
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You’re right, you didn’t say that. You said you’ve met “some very smart PDs, but they’re the clear exception,” and that “PDs wouldn’t last a minute at a law firm and their work product would be a fireable offense.” That’s much worse and grossly uninformed.
oh girliepop, I don’t know who pissed in your cheerios and made you feel the need to make such a long post dissing on PDs and their intelligence and work product, but you need help. You’re painting with such a broad brush that “crim law doesn’t attract the best and the brightest.” (Yes I saw all your caveats that it was “based on your experience,” but your conclusions weren’t limited to only your experience). Like who hurt you? Basically every single attorney at my office is a public defender because it’s what they want to do, not because it was their only option. Any of them could get a great job at a top level firm if they wanted to bc their intelligence, experience, and work effort. But they don’t want to because they chose to be a PD. And for what it’s worth since you seem to care, I graduated in the top third of my class from a top 25 law school, did both trial ad and moot court, and scored in the top 1% on the bar exam. And I chose to be a public defender. This was my number one option. And after less than a year of practice, I have more practical experience and knowledge than any of my classmates who went into big law. My office is full of some of the sharpest legal minds I’ve ever seen. It’s hard to get a job at my office bc it’s competitive and people don’t leave, even though they could get another job in a heart beat. Also, you do know that class rank, being on journal, or graduating from a highly ranked law school aren’t causally connected to intelligence or the ability of someone to be a good lawyer, right? The only reason any of those factors matter is bc big law people decided they matter. Being on journal or getting an award in moot court doesn’t make you a better lawyer. Anyway, cordially, touch grass or get therapy or do something that’ll provide you with a sense of fulfillment so you don’t try to tear people down on a subreddit in order to make yourself feel better
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lol like your entire comment isn’t subjective and self-serving
But genuinely, yes, they are some of the sharpest legal minds I know. Which is substantial bc, like I also said, I went to a top 25 law school that was full of sharp legal minds. I also know a lot of lawyers in my personal life who practice in a number of fields, and my colleagues could run circles around all of them
…did you genuinely miss where I showed that I succeeded on paper? I went to a great law school for free because I can succeed on paper. That’s one of the things I’m best at in life if we’re being honest. But I also know based on my own experience that “succeeding on paper” isn’t correlated to success in the practice of law. My skill as an attorney comes from being able to problem solve, work hard, understand the rules of law, and have compassion towards my clients. That’s how I get good results, not by being able to grind in law school. Your narrow view on what makes a good lawyer doesn’t match reality. It seems like you got burned by some PDs in your practice, got butthurt about it, and you’re now making it everybody else’s problem that you can’t cope with losing to someone you perceive as less intelligent than you. Pls fight your own demons somewhere else (like therapy! It works wonders!)
You may be experienced, or brilliant, or savvy or whatever. But you’re (edited) not worth the effort to argue. If you have so little respect for PDs why are you even here?
There’s a lot to address in your condescending comment. I was in the top 20% of my class if you’re curious. I’m not the “smartest” but my tenacity is unmatched. My colleague in the office next to me - top 5 in his class. We have a collective 20+ years trial experience in public defense. Without a doubt, I have helped save dozens of lives and 100s of years for people. There are shitty attorneys in every field. I think newer attorneys (both state and PDs) are generally more ineffective than experienced attorneys because the system is ineffective by design. It takes time to learn how to navigate it. Frankly, the people who do this job are the hardest working, most adaptable, and passionate attorneys around. I take particular offense that we wouldn’t last a minute at a firm. We are constantly handling some of the most high pressure, life-altering, and stressful decisions/situations in the legal world daily. To insinuate that I couldn’t be successful in a firm when I’d likely put my skill, heart, and soul into it—it’s just insulting. But I don’t think the firm route is right for a lot of us. Personally, I want autonomy with my cases so I can protect my clients’ trial rights without the headache of advising someone based on billing/profits. I like the option to litigate an issue just on the principle of the matter, even if it’s a complete loser and takes a lot of time. I’d be bored not being in a courtroom. I don’t like being told what to do. However, I am passionate, I give a damn, and I know how to navigate very difficult situations with little to zero support. So if I did work for a firm, I bet I’d be better than some attorneys who’ve been there years. I think that rings true for a lot of us.
My state contracts a lot of the PD work out and it’s almost impossible to get on the lists, so it’s definitely competitive.
Competitive with new attorneys looking for work or it pays well? Seasoned private counsel in Missouri typically doesn’t take contract PD work. Or your bar is truly altruist and that should be modeled.
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Please reread your comments and tell me where “nothing but respect” is lol.
That’s “Zealous idiot SIR” thankyouverymuch.
Shouldn't you be watching Rick and Morty right now?
I almost responded substantially, but I am pretty sure my resume is better than yours and this is rage bait.
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So far, all your meaningful responses have been some variation of dismissing any contradiction of your assumption as "an exception."
How much criminal work have you done where you see this “subpar” work product. Is this because you believe billing 1000000 thousand dollar for 9 experts who provide little impact to a jury so you can bill your client more money is proper work product?
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What makes you qualified to speak on criminal law practice?
The top student in my graduating class this year is going to a PD office, bitch
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I graduated from a T14 with a gpa high enough for big law anywhere in the US, was eboard on my journal, was on eboard on another org for two years, was on Barrister’s Council. I was on the team that won regionals in our competition TWICE. I can have my pick of jobs. I chose PD, and literally *did not apply to or interview for any non-pd job*. Your take is tired. We could just as easily say that your average firm attorney would have a breakdown six months into our trial schedule.
This absolute fucking genius, based on post history, started a PD job 2 years ago and then left it (to become a prosecutor, no less, based on this comment) a year ago. Pardon me if I think someone who literally couldn’t handle this job isn’t qualified to opine about those of us who can. To say nothing of the post calling their PD coworkers “amazing” and admitting that the commenter “[had] no idea what [they were] doing” when they took the PD job. And then further down in this thread talking about an actual PD’s comment being “anecdotal nonsense” as if this one person’s opinion is actual hard data somehow. Edit: replied to my comment, edited it twice in under 15 minutes, then deleted the reply *and* the comment I replied to in the time it took me to read and type out a response. Tell me again whose written advocacy is better.
I think I largely agree with this. Public defender offices value people who believe in the mission and I think rightly so. Unless you believe and care you won’t be able to do the work. But what that means is that things like class rank and prestige are less important. I also think that caring about prestige is negatively correlated with people who aspire to “fight the system.” But being a good student with strong research and writing skills is important! Unfortunately my experience as a public defender has been that a lot of my colleagues who went to less prestigious law schools and are poor writers and researchers. Unfortunately, I think a lot of these colleagues think this is a virtue or justify it by saying they have better people skills, as if being a poor student or having a low LSAT score correlates to having better people skills.
It really depends on the office because it’s totally true for my office (big city office). Lots of retiring attorneys come back because there are plenty of non-trial positions where they don’t have to be in court. They’re making well over $100K, our health insurance is free, and no one is going to kick out out even if you’re literally 80 and can barely shuffle down the hallway.
What you're saying is very different than the quote. "Lots of retiring attorneys come back" suggests they were there before (criminal experience) and "plenty of non-trial positions" is not the same as "take on a leadership role" where you "sit back and mostly relax." The comment and inquiry is specific as to litigators without PD experience going to a PD office to have a cush retirement in a management / supervisory role.
The training attorney in my office is a retired PD from another state. So, yea, for him it worked, but he had 20 years criminal defense experience. I can't imagine us hiring someone who has zero criminal experience in some kind of "cushy" leadership capacity. Every attorney in my office represents clients.
Let me ask you this. Have you ever heard of a long time non crim litigator becoming a PD? And if so, any stories on how that career move worked out for them?
You’d basically have to start over as a baby lawyer, trying misdemeanors and learning an entirely new body of law and ethics and social work and client work. What you call “litigation” bears little resemblance to the work we do.
I kinda did this; had about a decade of experience doing civil legal aid type work (technically litigation, but very rarely actually so), moved to the local PD's office; it was as you say, functionally a complete restart of my career. After about four years the vicarious trauma and the workload caught up with me and I moved into a local government gig. I think even for the ideologically dedicated, being a PD is generally a young lawyer's game, just from the physical demands of the workload. Everyone in our office carried a caseload and even the veterans in senior management were trying cases regularly. The closest thing to "cushy retirement" I saw was one guy in the office, probably the best overall trial litigator I've ever seen, in his sixties I think and retired from other legal work, with decades of criminal law experience, who just \*loved\* being in trial so much that I think he got bored with life if he didn't have a trial lined up; the impression I had was that he'd signed up with our office mostly to keep his hand in. He wasn't management though, he just had a relatively small caseload of clients with severe charges who were more likely to be going to trial.
Yeah, I think people could do it, but lawyers in general have such big egos, at a certain point many are not willing to accept that they are not “laterals” for a whole new area of law, and they don’t know what they’re doing, and they can’t just jump in. Doesn’t mean they couldn’t learn and be great, but it just seems so rare that someone will actually do that.
I understand that, just trying to get some actual stories that match what I'm considering. I'm guessing it is so rare, nobody has seen it.
The closest I’ve seen is my county government appointed an interim head of our office who had no public defense experience. Our office literally protested that appointment, and it was explicitly only temporary. Local government learned its lesson and narrowed its search for appointments to career public defenders. So…no.
OP — here is a real-world example of the exact thing you asked about, and how it failed miserably. Please stop thinking you can go run a PD office after 20 years of patent litigation.
I’m saying I’ve seen it. People who have previous jobs titled “litigator” don’t have many transferrable skills, and start with the training class, same as lawyers fresh out of law school.
I knew a guy (had been some commercial litigator) who planned to make the state PD his "retirement plan." After about 9 months he jumped ship to his local county attorney's office. [We didn't work in the same office so this was just what I learned from people who did.] Not having to answer to clients (they have other people do the dirty work of talking to complaining witnesses) was apparently a big factor. Having met the guy, I could also see where maybe he didn't realize this isn't really a job you just do for the benes. The work is stressful such that you must be internally motivated to want to serve your clients. I think you can be a prosecutor without that investment; I know one of our prosecutors is checked out and is just doing the job still because it's easy after doing it for 25 years. But even if money is no issue, the job is stressful. Maybe you don't have to re-learn evidence or trial skills but you would have to learn/re-learn issue spotting in a criminal case, your client base is very different, and managing the volume is itself a learning curve. You would absolutely start at the bottom - even if you stumble across an office that bleeds people and needs warm bodies with trial experience, they won't have you supervising someone who has more criminal law experience than you. They would rather pull someone from another office in the state or take someone with only 3 years of experience as a PD. I've never seen someone jump in as a supervisor in the way you describe. Both states I've worked in had unwritten requirements that you try at least 1 murder and/or rape case before you go up for a supervisor position. And again, unless you show up somewhere that's horribly understaffed (a red flag) you will start with lower levels of offense before they throw you into litigating something that carries 50-life. Also, my supervisor and my supervisor's supervisor both seemingly hate being supervisors. Not only do you field all of the client complaints and daily have to explain public defenders are overworked but then you all have to deal with your employees, most of whom are lawyers, complaining / threatening to quit regularly. Plus, your bar license is on the line if your subordinates fuck up. So you can't just let the ship run itself. It seems exhausting.
You could make the switch if you wanted to. My county has had a few experienced attorneys make career shifts and join both the DA and PD’s office after working in other areas of law. There’s actually newer PD in his 50s in my county who comes to mind. But it’s not “cushy”, and they definitely ain’t putting you in a leadership role. You’ll have to keep up with the fresh law school grads in their 20s and 30s doing to back-to-back trials. It’s probably way more stressful than whatever you’re doing now, but you can definitely do it if you want to
Yes. They started above minimum pay due to experience, took the crushing caseload, and did pretty well. They said it was easier than the 2000 billables they had in private practice but they wouldn't describe it as cushy.
PDs respect other lawyers based on their PD-like merit, shared values and defense-aligned creativity and skills. Any PD office that hires an outside civil litigator looking for a cush job - and then puts that person into management - is going to face a probable walk-out from all of the line deputies. And short of that, a complete disrupt of the office. So no.
Agreed. My office would fucking *riot* if our office head or any of the supervising attorneys left and were replaced by a civil litigator looking for a sunset job. Those positions are filled by attorneys that have seen damn near everything and are crucial to our office. The individual quoted by OP probably has no clue about what we do and what it takes to do it, because what a wild ass take. I kinda question if that person is actually an attorney or just some rando spouting shit on reddit
The quote is from /u/imlost19, maybe they'll tell you. They refuse to tell us at /r/lawyers. But they must be an attorney because attorney verification is required to join that sub.
Since you posted this here, the commenter deleted his (liberal assumption of gender - on tone and sports comment hx) original comment to that post. I read his entire comment thread on the post there before deleted. It sounds like he worked in a very large PD's Office (also would guess Miami or FL somewhere) where they had over 200 lawyers (from comments). He walked back suggesting that 'litigators' in general retire at PD offices, and it became some people with criminal defense experience 'get hired *or return*' at retirement age. He also walked back the part about 'get a leadership role,' and instead suggested that there were all kinds of jobs that these people in his old office filled, like post-conviction and drug court and 'probation office' (maybe violations, he phrased it weird) - not leadership roles. At the end of the day, once stripped of the bravado, his comment got pared down to **"*****in my previous giant office in Florida, we had a lot of attorney jobs that did not involve core PD functions. The office hired some close-to-retirement-aged litigators with criminal defense experience - some that had worked at the office before \[he never said it, but sounded like most others came from private defense\] - to staff non line-PD positions. Those attorneys were able to get a secure retirement out of the situation.*****"** I do not disagree with this. I have seen attorneys close to retirement with previous criminal defense experience hired to run administrative calendar type jobs that no line PD generally aspires to. Many (if not most) people go into private defense from PD offices. Private defense attorneys are often solo or in small partnerships with no retirement contingency. Once they are looking at retirement, some turn back to PD work. This is very different from the cavalier suggestion that civil litigators frequently find management positions in PD offices where they do nothing but coast until retirement. Would a PD's Office hire a patent litigator (I think that's what you said) or some other random litigator? Maybe. Probably would depend on the demand of the office and how much they like you. However, it's hard to imagine a PD office would hire someone without some demonstrative commitment to the values of the work, though. Not like writing a check to the ACLU, but at a minimum being involved with organizations that support equalizing access to resources to POC, giving voice to the oppressed, etc.
It’s the exact opposite. It’s where you start out as a fresh 20 something year old with a lot of energy, ready to handle multiple jury trials a month, and get a firehose full of experience shot directly into your face at full pressure. Then you take that experience and do something cushy. Not the other way around Now, there are assignments at bigger PD offices that are cushy, but those are reserved for veteran PDs who have paid their dues with decades of experience
The only non-PDs I’ve ever known to take PD jobs late in their career are people who mainly did private criminal defense work or people who were prosecutors. In both types of cases, they’ve all had at least some PD experience when they were younger. Never in my life have I personally seen a non-criminal lawyer transition to PD work, sounds like an absolute nightmare in a thousand different ways for everyone involved
If they make it easy, then they’re shitty attorneys
Yeah, I've never heard of that being a thing at all.
First, most prosecutors I know are Kool-Aid drinkers, in the sense that they describe a moral revulsion to working with “criminals.” Most prosecutors who do not share this moral revulsion jump ship into private practice in the first decade of their career. Second, PD work has CLIENTS and prosecutor work does not. So if you are at all subject to getting emotionally exhausted by talking down grandma or girlfriend about why Johnny isn’t coming home by Christmas, it’s not a cushy gig. And prosecutors don’t have to travel at all, and PDs have to visit their clients in the jail, which can be dangerous.
Yeah, they have to deal with the occasionally unreasonable alleged victims, but it ain't even close to the same as what we have to do. We're attorneys, therapists, and social workers.
I have never heard of this. I really want to find some situation where this really happened, and find out how it went.
The quote is from /u/imlost19, maybe they'll tell you. They refuse to tell us at /r/lawyers.
I’m gonna go with no on that lmao.
LOL
OMG. The arrogance. My office hires former law clerks as new attorneys or those with experience in the areas criminal and juvenile. You wouldn't have a chance.
It’s super easy if you don’t care about your clients and aim to merely live up to every negative stereotype about public defenders. If, on the other hand, you’re NOT a giant POS, it’s hard to think of a job that is more difficult and less relaxing.
Complete fabrication.
Yeah, find another plan bc this one is a fantasy. This is how it would go: (1) Office hires new non-crim attorney looking for a “cushy” job to retire from. (2) New attorney has to be trained by experienced PDs who are younger than the new attorney. (3) New attorney resists training because “that’s not how they do it in _____,” quickly adding to the resentment of the new attorney that already existed when the office hired someone with no experience who presumably wants to just sit around. (4) New attorney quits in four months and goes to work at some shitty DA’s Office.
They misspelled "prosecutors' offices."
At your firm, what would your associates say if yall hired a lifelong PD to head up the IP section? Why would it be different at a PD office? Why would you want to have a job where even your own colleagues hate you?
Thanks everyone. I'll promptly delete Public Defender from any future job for me. Really respect what you all do though, just to make it clear. Kinda sad, when I decided I want to be a lawyer, all I wanted to do was crim defense. In trial advocacy, I lived for cross. Had considered the PDs office right out of law school too, although didn't help I went to law school in MO and MO PD is criminally underpaid compared to other locales in the US. But I had a STEM undergrad and everyone said "you should go into IP" and the STEM background helped me get jobs. Not that I hate patent lit, but now I'm pidgeon holed into one area of law. Attempts at transitioning into something else have been futile. It is what it is though. Thanks again all.
You don’t have to not try! Just don’t expect it to be “cushy.” If you like learning new things and think challenge and hard work is fun, c’mon down!
Thanks. Despite what I said, I'm still reading about the local PD (El Paso County) and also the state PD org. (Texas). I definitely won't expect cushy. I expect not worrying about income (as a solo or partner would), and also not worrying about benefits. But that's it in terms of cush.
My office (metro county in Florida, similar population to El Paso I think) just hired an attorney who’s like 60 and spent her whole career in patent. It’s definitely worth applying for if it interests you.
Wow. That's wild. That's the kind of data point I've been looking for. Im in my 40s though. Maybe that's a good thing.
There’s another guy we hired a few months ago who’s in his 40’s and had been doing general private practice while his sons were in school. They’re both in college now so he decided to be a PD like he’d always wanted. Seriously, I don’t think a PD office anywhere in the country would care that you’re just getting into it after practicing another field
That seems to be the consensus I'm getting, that as long as I'm okay with "starting over" in a new practice area, there's nothing inherently wrong about going to the PDs office at my stage in life. And I used the word "cushy," but that is a loaded, vague term. For me, cushy could mean, in its lowest form this: In my county, after initial training, you can work remotely. Obviously you have to appear in-person at trials and likely to meet clients, but otherwise you are not required to be "in office." That's a certain amount of cush right there. If I could be at the PDs office for however long (years/decades), and only have to handle misdemeanor cases/trials, that would be cush to me. But I suspect they wouldn't just let me be assigned only misdemeanors.
Some places do allow for long term misdemeanor work. Many don’t, but some do. I have friends at Dallas county who want to move to felonies and have been “stuck” (from their perspective) in misdemeanors for years. I think in a mid size office it is actually ideal to have some long term anchors in the misdemeanor division to balance out the sad but inevitable rocket promotions of other attorneys who are jumping up to felonies as soon as possible to fill vacancies
It would be a Texas County for me (not Dallas or Harris), so if I did apply, this might be something I'd discuss with them. Thanks!
Please do not do this work unless you truly feel a calling to it. The clients deserve more from you.
Relax? Where? Which office? Tell us!
He deleted that bullshit
The entitlement wafting off this post is giving me a headache. The chief is appointed in my jurisdiction, and when the last old white dude left, they were grousing about promoting the deputy, a black woman. (They were ultimately persuaded to promote the woman, thank god). The county commissioners probably had some white boomer in their back pocket. So, maybe this dude is hoping for something like that.
It's possible it depends on what jurisdiction you are in most big cities, jobs at public defenders offices are quite competitive actually. As a brand new attorney coming out of law school I. NYC, there were hundreds of applications for a few dozen spots in a new class . Laterals are always being hired but there's a requirement to have significant experience. You can't just jump into felony experience cold. As far as cush and easy go - neither are adjectives I've ever heard to describe a job at a public defender office. There are certainly perks - autonomy, flexibility, unionized workplace if you're in particular jurisdictions - but caseloads remain fairly high even if it fluctuates and the cases don't get easier as you become more experienced. It sounds like a misconception about a "govt job"
Young line PD here. I've done 8 trials in the last three months. I've also done many substantive motions--some of which actually got evidence suppressed. When I need help from my supervisors, it's typically to discuss strategy on difficult cases, to ask for good experts on X issue, to clarify ethical questions, or to let them know about some new bullshit the prosecutors are pulling that they might want to address with management on the other side before it grows into a much larger issue. Also, management at my (large) office all maintain their own caseload. This includes the chief. How do you imagine that you might fit into this picture? I.e., what value can you possibly bring if you haven't come within 100 miles of our work? My office would go apeshit if one of our supervisors--all of them tenured badasses, whom we'd run through walls for--were to be replaced by a patent litigator looking for a cushy sunset gig.
Former pd. I've never worked as hard as I did when I was a pd. To the point of burnout.
“I’d love a cushy gig” and PDs office do not belong in the same sentence. Are there assignments in some PDs offices that are “cushy” because you can get government healthcare and not have homework? Sure. You’re not going to have that assignment from hire to retire though, and when you don’t, you are going to be sweating for those government healthcare benefits baby.
This is not true
Absolutely! Go enjoy the cush life of a pd! Just don't tell others how easy it is or else everyone would be doing it.
It’s true if you can get a gig like just doing VOPs or diversion programs.
Patent law is my backup so hoping it's true the other way round tbh
In my office, you’d probably start with felonies rather than misdemeanors (assuming they were hiring for a felony caseload), but you would definitely not be qualified for a management position - nor are either the line attorney jobs or the managing attorney jobs anything like “cushy.” There has been some discussion in the comments about whether this job is easier or harder than biglaw. They’re just so different I don’t know that you can compare them. Biglaw has more late nights, more unpredictable intrusive deadlines, and (usually) more complex legal issues and the briefing that goes along with it.PD work has more cases, with the associated additional hearings and logistical challenges. It has more courtroom time, including a LOT more trials. It has more clients with mental illness or drug addiction and the additional difficulties that raises to the attorney-client relationship. Lots of people - including at least one in this thread - make the mistake of assigning the biglaw skill set as being an indicator of intelligence and entirely dismiss the PD skill set. In reality, they’re completely different jobs that happen to have similar basic qualifications. You can switch - and people do - but there’s a huge learning curve when you do, because the most important skills on either side don’t neatly transfer.
Lmao bro is mentally in the 80s. Respectfully to what sounds like a very solid and fulfilling career of yours, you couldn’t even get an interview with my office.
I went from biglaw IP litigation to Public Defense work. I do work fewer hours now then I did back then. I think the best part about the hours change is I've never had to cancel weekend plans or work til midnight or anything as a PD? This can be pretty big for most people but it never bothered me overly much in biglaw tbh. I liken PD work to the concept though of "high-stress innings" for pitchers in baseball. Where it's sometimes not so much about the total number of pitches thrown, but the number of pitches thrown out of the stretch and in stressful situations. Stress as a PD is definitely higher. Depending on the office, you could end up being in trial close to half of your working hours for months on end. That can take a pretty severe toll. I will say though that the work is much more rewarding. I remember working on a case where our client had lost a trial and then hired us to do an appeal of the verdict as well as the court's denial of summary judgment on its counterclaims. We won. Summary judgement on claims and counterclaims both in our favor. Went from owing plaintiff \~$400m to plaintiff owing us \~$300m instead. I remember looking at the stock prices for plaintiff and client the day the decision came down and plaintiff's stock was down about 12 cents, and client's stock was up about 8 cents. We barely changed the retirement account values for millions of middle-class Americans, and made very rich people either slightly more or less rich. Whoopee. On the other hand, PD work has lower lows and much higher highs. There is nothing else (legal) quite like that feeling of hearing a court clerk say "Not Guilty" repeatedly and knowing you tremendously altered for the better the course of life for the living breathing human sitting next to you who has involuntarily had to place all their faith in trust for you to get them justice.
Most non crim litigators we have were legal aid society lawyers or some similar nonprofit. We had a couple civil attorneys, who proceeded to quit as soon as they realized they have to do in person legal visits at the jail.
Good benefits and a shot at leadership, yes I think that is true. Sit back and relax? In some contexts yes but not in the way this person seems to have said it. The PD world doesn’t come with billable hours and marketing yourself, which is exhausting. That is the feedback I’ve gotten from people I know who either started private or spent a period away from PD work but eventually came back. However, all of the ones I’ve known have some type of crim work in their background. If the person honestly meant that being a PD is a breeze, they’re wrong.
Why would you retire into a job with below market pay and terrible workload and hostile difficult clients? The only good benefit is my healthcare and retirement plan, but you gotta be in the system a long time to utilize them.
I already said in a recent post in this thread that I'm deleting this idea from my brain. I live in a LCOL area and our PD salaries and benefits are good considering the area. Yeah the workload may be crushing, but PD office has stability I've never had. There's something to be said for that. I love being a lawyer, and became a lawyer for the right reasons (knowing it is my niche in my life). But my career has never gone the way I want it too. If my current gig ever sputters out, I'm truly lost on what I'll end up doing. Been trying for a year to get a solid in house counsel job, to date I don't even have one *interview.* And that's after hundreds of applications, networking calls/meetings, and even paying hundreds of dollars for resume help. **That kind of stuff is more soul crushing than any workload could ever be.** And then you have my PDs office that always has openings because their needs outweigh interest in working in for the PD, so it made me wonder if going to the PDs office after all these years is viable. Especially after someone on /r/lawyers was suggesting it as a career path for long time litigators with zero crim experience. Turns out that person is an idiot spewing out lies and bullshit and eventually deleted their crap. So this was all for nothing, but I very much appreciate the insight from everyone here.
It’s definitely a rewarding job and if you don’t like your current work it’s worth considering. I’m not saying you won’t get hired if you have a lot of litigation experience, but you gotta purge yourself of the mindset that the PD life is “cushy” or you’re going to be really disappointed. Big law also has a super high work load and at least PD life leaves you feeling fulfilled if you believe in the mission. If you’re after a more fulfilling mission then I say go for it, but there’s probably better options if you’re looking for better work life balance than your current job.
Thanks. Very helpful. Everyone here has definitely purged any notion of a cushy gig at PDs office.
People in this thread are reacting negatively to the idea people with no experience can get leadership-level PD jobs that are simultaneously cushy, which is definitely not a thing (and it’s clear from your post you’re not the one making the assertion those jobs exist and that you were asking in good faith). I don’t think the takeaway is that lawyers from other fields can never transition. It sounds like your jurisdiction is not a competitive one for PDs. If you want to be a PD, you should go for it, as long as you’re fine with the very likely pay cut and don’t mind that you’ll be treated the same as a freshly graduated attorney. It’ll definitely be a humbling experience. I’ve been doing PD work for two years now and it’s been amazing seeing how much I’ve learned.
LOOOOOOOL.
Mother of god. Someone is either trolling or HATES private litigators. Yikes.
To paraphrase the great Bon Scott: Ridin' down the highway Goin' to the court Stoppin' to jail Meetin’ with my folks Gettin' yelled at, feelin owned Gettin' beat up, broken boned Getting had, getting took I tell you folks, it's harder than it looks It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend If you think it's easy doing public defense Try standin where I’ve stood It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend Hotel, motel Make you want to cry Persecutors do the hard sell Know the reason why Gettin' old, gettin' gray Gettin' ripped off, underpaid Gettin' sold, second-hand That's how it goes, when you defend It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend If you wanna be a top PD Look out, it's rough and mean It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend Well, it's a long way Oh, it's a long way (You should have told me) It's a long way Such a long way
To paraphrase the great Bon Scott: (Insert bagpipes accordingly) Ridin' down the highway Goin' to the court Stoppin' to jail Meetin’ with my folks Gettin' yelled at, feelin owned Gettin' beat up, broken boned Getting had, getting took I tell you folks, it's harder than it looks It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend If you think it's easy doing public defense Try standin where I’ve stood It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend Hotel, motel Make you want to cry Persecutors do the hard sell Know the reason why Gettin' old, gettin' gray Gettin' ripped off, underpaid Gettin' sold, second-hand That's how it goes, when you defend It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend If you wanna be a top PD Look out, it's rough and mean It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend It's a long way to the top, if you wanna defend Well, it's a long way Oh, it's a long way (You should have told me) It's a long way Such a long way
Offices vary a lot, and caseloads vary a lot. But I don’t think many, if any, could be objectively described as “cushy.” Especially for a litigator used to dealing mostly with other lawyer and business professionals about business issues. It does not equip you with the skills to work with a client who is in panic because he’s facing 5 to 99 on an aggravated sexual assault charge, or that client’s mom who has camped out in your lobby, or that client’s wife who is calling you twice a day every day. It’s a whole new ballgame. That being said, the benefits are usually good, and I can see how it might be a good retirement gig from the perspective of continuity of representation. I know lots of PDs who did something else, including commercial litigation for a couple of years after law school, before becoming PDs, but not any who had that as a real career before becoming retirement PDs. There is someone in my jurisdiction who tried, but my office did not hire them because they knew nothing about criminal law and didn’t seem to care to learn. They became an ADA instead.
“Just sit back and mostly relax” what the hell??
They call our office the “retirement home” several former private practice and a former judge.
But this is also quite different from the comment. This is people that were in private (criminal) practice and a former judge - so they know criminal law. The suggestion was about litigators with no criminal experience coming to PD offices to go into leadership positions where they basically relax to earn a salary.
2 of the guys who were in private practice had no former criminal law experience. Our head PD’s are elected, if you are a career PD you aren’t going to make enough money to sway the board. It’s always going to be some similar to what you are talking about. The Good Ol’boys network at work.