Although lawyers typically finish near used-car salesmen in public opinion surveys of the trust and respect accorded to professionals, perhaps no other lawyer is subjected to the indignities endured by public defenders. The stories are legend. From my family alone.
When queried about the path I’d taken after recently graduating from law school and joining the Public Defender’s Office in Pittsburgh, my father would respond, “He does litigation,” and quickly change the subject. (After asking me what attracted me to the position, my dad, a business executive, winced when I told him, “It was the money.”) More than one lawyer in the family it’s a genetic condition in my clan warned me to get a job in a law firm fairly soon to avoid being typed as “someone who can’t do anything but defend criminals.”
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