Abstract
In this article, we ask why public defenders remain on the job despite a number of unique and testing work-related challenges. To answer this question, we analyze original data collected through 87 semistructured interviews with public defenders from government, nonprofit, and appointed counsel systems across the United States. Participants explicated a set of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations salient to their decision to remain in public defense: interacting with clients, defending the Constitution, fighting social inequality, pursuing personal values, appreciating camaraderie with colleagues, and earning public sector benefits. We discuss how our findings relate to prior research, identify directions for future studies, and tentatively engage policy implications.
Introduction
A fair criminal justice system cannot exist without public defenders, the attorneys charged with providing legal defense for individuals accused of breaking the law who cannot afford their own attorney. Yet they receive limited material and political support. Public defenders tend to earn less than their peers in private law firms, often manage very high caseloads, and have limited access to important resources, such as investigators, translators, and social workers (Farole & Langton, 2010). Even public defenders with adequate salaries and sufficient resources infrequently have little time to prepare for court appearances and trials. Together, these factors can make the work of public defenders especially challenging. For many, remaining on the job can be a difficult choice—despite the value they see in their role as guardians of justice in what is often considered an unjust legal system.
The challenges that public defenders face constitute only half of the story, as many choose to become—and remain—public defenders. Despite adversities, being a public defender entails meaningful work that helps disadvantaged populations, fosters collaboration with like-minded colleagues, and can provide relatively generous public sector benefits. These aspects of the profession constitute motivators for initial entry into public defense, but it is less clear how they affect career longevity. Evidence suggests the importance of attorneys’ professional experience for the delivery of justice. Studies of prosecutors indicate that tenure is positively associated with several output metrics, including conviction rates and sentence lengths (Boylan, 2004). Similarly, public defenders’ experience levels can benefit clients in the form of improved plea bargaining and reduced time in prison (Abrams & Yoon, 2007; Anderson & Heaton, 2012).
In light of the findings from the studies that point to tenure as vital for the quality of legal representation, in this article we examine why public defenders remain on the job. We draw on original semistructured interviews with 87 public defenders across the United States. The sample is mostly comprised of salaried government defenders, as well as nonprofit and contract attorneys. Although participants expressed challenges associated with their work, we focus on the factors that drive their decision to remain on the job. To frame our analysis of why public defenders remain in this profession, we build on the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in social psychology. We start by laying out the usual motives for why people become attorneys—and public defenders—in the first place.
Background
Why Become a Public Defender?
Research on law students and lawyers reveals several co-occurring motivations for entering the legal profession, such as desires for occupational and social prestige, intellectual stimulation, and material benefits. Altruistic desires—such as helping others and improving society—are less commonly expressed as the prime motivations for lawyering (Daicoff, 1996).
Within these general motives, there are unique factors that shape the pursuit of work in public defense, a specialization often perceived as less prestigious and legitimate by a public skeptical of the value of defending potentially guilty people (Babcock, 1983; Laumann & Heinz, 1977). Previous research and legal commentary suggest several rationales for becoming a public defender, including preserving the adversarial process, protecting civil liberties, participating in the search for truth, working toward social justice, helping the disadvantaged, and experiencing excitement associated with trial work and victories (Babcock, 1983; Smith, 2003; Weiss, 2005). Public defense can also spur camaraderie among colleagues with shared understandings, goals, and personalities (Smith, 2004; Weiss, 2005). Intrinsic motivations, such as personal development and connection to clients, further act to encourage joining public defense (Katz, 1978). There are also practical motives, such as eligibility for loan forgiveness programs that can partially compensate for defenders’ relatively lower income (Dinovitzer & Garth, 2004). These motives reflect how indigent defense is a unique legal specialization and may be instructive for understanding why public defenders remain on their jobs.
The Challenges Faced by Public Defenders
The 1963 Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright required states to provide legal counsel to defendants who cannot afford a private attorney. This landmark decision placed public defenders in a central role in ensuring a fair and equitable criminal justice system. However, their work is often characterized by adversities that make staying on the job challenging. Indeed, this particular legal specialization faces some of the highest rates of mobility and turnover (Dinovitzer & Garth, 2004; Ogletree, 1995).
This section briefly reviews five common issues faced by public defenders. First, the prevalence of very high caseloads can lead to what has been described as the quantitative role overload (Farole & Langton, 2010; Lynch, 1997). Second, salaries often underpay public defenders for the kind of expertise and effort they bring to their cases (National Association for Law Placement [NALP], 2018). Third, inadequate resources frustrate efforts to provide effective legal representation. Fourth, there are enduring obstacles to the legitimacy of public defense stemming from the emotional aspects of representing indigent clients and unfavorable public opinion about public defenders—the “public pretender” stereotype or what has been described as the “stigma of ineptitude” (McIntyre, 1987). Fifth, risks of secondary trauma can result from repeatedly serving trauma-exposed clients (Levin et al., 2011).
Public defenders often have exceptionally high caseloads. In the first national census of public defender offices carried out in 2007, Farole and Langton (2010) found that, on average, each public defender was assigned about 370 cases per year. Based on these numbers, working 1,800 hr per year would translate to 5 to 6 hr per case—a time that includes activities from pretrial preparation and case investigation to court appearances. It seems that not much has changed since 2007. New Orleans’s public defender office, for instance, was sued in 2016 by the American Civil Liberties Union for having to refuse any new felony cases due to understaffing. This caseload burden can make it harder for public defenders to adequately represent their clients, a responsibility that also requires resources for tracing and checking evidence in a timely manner, handling administrative tasks, and researching (available) relevant legal literature. Yet, many of these resources can be hard to come by for public defenders, especially in relation to their counterparts working for the prosecution.
Public defense and legal aid attorneys notoriously receive relatively low compensation, especially when compared with the lucrative salaries of private attorneys. The most recent survey data from the NALP showed that attorneys providing civil legal services have the lowest median entry-level salary, the smallest experience-based salary increases, and the slowest salary growth over the past 14 years (NALP, 2018). Data also reveal that the median entry-level public defender salary is slightly higher at US$58,300, a number that still falls far below levels for newly minted attorneys in private practice—but is at about the same level as salaries of prosecutors. For reference, entry-level salaries in law firms ranged from US$90,000 in small firms to US$180,000 in large firms in 2017 (NALP, 2018). Indigent defense systems that employ full-time attorneys at the state and county level may provide a degree of job security and benefits unique to the public sector, yet the exact system structure and compensation scheme often varies across place and falls below that of private practice.
Relatedly, the chronic underfunding of indigent defense presents additional challenges by making it fiscally infeasible to afford all necessary resources to provide adequate and effective defense in the courtroom. It is often the case that public defense offices lack access to some or most of these supports, including investigators, social workers, translators, paralegals, and administrative staff. Their absence places an even larger burden on attorneys already overburdened by case volume. Studies reveal that infusing resources into public defense offices—in the form of additional staff attorneys, administrative support, and caseload caps—can improve communication with clients, speed up processing charges, and boost courtroom morale (Labriola, Farley, Rempel, Raine, & Martin, 2015; Luchansky, 2010).
The work of public defenders is also affected by public perception. These opinions are often negative and can play a role in the way public defenders are able to do their job. For example, some clients hold negative views about public defenders, as reflected by the proliferation of the so-called “public pretender” stereotype. In light of the high caseloads and limited resources they tend to work with, it is perhaps not surprising when clients have legitimate concerns with the quality of their representation from a public defender. However, such concerns may instead reflect an assumption that public defenders will not provide adequate legal representation because their salary is being paid by the government or other public funds. If indigent defendants have had poor experiences with other social services, they might have the same expectations about the quality of their assigned legal counsel. As others have pointed out, this frustration is recurring among public defenders who keep asking themselves and others: “Why don’t my clients think I’m a real lawyer?” (Moore, Yaroshefsky, & Davies, 2018).
Finally, public defenders are at heightened risk of secondary traumatization through interactions with trauma-exposed clients. Traumatization may be especially pronounced among public defenders who regularly bear witness to their clients’ histories of disadvantage and violence (Levin et al., 2011; Levin, Besser, Albert, Smith, & Neria, 2012). Criminology has long established that individuals with histories of criminal behavior tend to also have histories of victimization (Lauritsen, Sampson, & Laub, 1991). In other words, indigent defendants likely have firsthand experienced trauma associated with prior victimization. Research with Wisconsin state public defenders demonstrates that working with trauma-exposed clients may result in health problems, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, and functional impairment (Levin et al., 2011, 2012). Similar adverse health responses are evident in other occupations where professionals work with trauma survivors, such as physicians and social workers (Bride, 2007; Elwood, Mott, Lohr, & Galovski, 2011). The nature of working with indigent clients in the criminal justice system—a group who likely have experienced prior trauma—may generate additional occupational challenges.
The challenges encountered by public defenders may be magnified in the contemporary American criminal justice system. Over 20 years ago, Lynch (1997) conducted one of the only quantitative studies of the intensity and frequency of stressors among public defenders. His work revealed several stressors, including the quantity of work such as excessive caseloads, a lack of resources and certainty during trial preparation, interactions with clients, and the necessity of engaging with other legal system actors—prosecutors and judges. Since this study, a “tough on crime” approach has repeatedly gained political momentum in the highest offices of government, including in our current political moment (Sessions, 2017). Taken with the massive rise in criminal justice operations over the past several decades, the challenges that public defenders may experience today could be even greater.
Public Defender Motivations
Despite these numerous and varied challenges, many public defenders choose to stay on the job. Prior research identified several reasons why. Ogletree (1993) argued that certain mentalities—for example, empathy for clients and a sense of heroism—drive sustained practice of public defense despite the real potential for burnout. Some scholars adopted an alternative view that widens the focus to “respect for clients, pride in craft, and a sense of outrage about inequality, injustice, and the routine abuse of power by those in a position to wield it” (Smith, 2004, p. 1208). In this section, we describe findings from largely qualitative social science studies that examined public defender motivations either as a primary focus (Weiss, 2005) or as an emergent theme in broader assessments of their work (Wice, 2005).
In a study of the Essex county regional public defender office in Newark, New Jersey, Wice (2005) found camaraderie to be the most common reason attorneys gave for why they stayed on the job, even among legal staff who remained in the same office for more than 10 years. Attorneys liked their colleagues and appreciated access to a wealth of shared knowledge. In addition, Wice (2005) found that opportunities to engage in litigation, especially trial work experience, were another positive aspect of practicing public defense. Results also illustrated the importance of autonomy and personal freedom attorneys had in their day-to-day work.
In his interview study of public defenders, Weiss (2005) described two broad sets of motivations expressed as underlying decisions to keep representing indigent defendants: pragmatic and political. Pragmatic motivations include more tangible and self-regarding factors, such as trial work opportunities, variety and autonomy in office work, intellectual stimulation and allure of criminal practice, and camaraderie of working with like-minded colleagues. On the contrary, political motivations are outward focused and have an ideological foundation—similar to what Scheingold and Sarat (2004) have encapsulated in the term “cause lawyering.” Political motivations include legal or Constitutional reasons, especially the importance of upholding Constitutional rights. These drives are also altruistic in the sense that public defending is considered a helping profession for people in need. Finally, political motives can entail an antiestablishment sentiment defined by distrust for government and fighting what is considered an unjust system and its actors—including police, prosecutors, and judges.
These studies reveal a great deal of valuable knowledge about the motivations that sustain public defenders through their rich descriptions of what drives attorneys to represent indigent defendants and remain in a profession that is, relative to working for private firms, less prestigious and lucrative. Despite this strength, the sample characteristics of this body of work limits the ability to speak to experiences of public defenders more broadly. Wice’s (2005) sample draws from a single public defender office where attorneys are full-time state employees. Similarly, Weiss’s (2005) research engaged public defenders from a single (unidentified) state. The structure and delivery of indigent defense varies widely across jurisdictions, depending on the location, the type of employment, and the political setting. Consequently, studies focused on a single office or state are limited in the extent to which they capture how this organizational diversity may differentially affect experiences and motivations. Relative to these prior studies, our work draws on a more diversified sample that includes public defenders from multiple states and offices and with a range of employment arrangements. Before we further describe our sample, we outline the conceptual framework for our analysis.
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations
We provide a framing for our analysis of why public defenders remain on the job by differentiating intrinsic and extrinsic motivations—a distinction common in social psychological research on work and occupations (Lepper & Henderlong, 2000) as well as studies of attorneys (Cohen, 1995; Krieger & Sheldon, 2015). Intrinsic motivation tends to drive action that provides intangible internal rewards, including a sense of accomplishment and contribution to causes of personal importance. Conversely, extrinsic motivation is more instrumental, as it orients individuals toward actions likely to result in material or tangible rewards. These two general sources of motivation can best sustain individuals when they coexist, but striking a balance can be difficult. When one dominates the other, the imbalance can lower job satisfaction and eventually affect an individual’s desire and ability to continue in the job. We return to this point when discussing our findings.
“Cause lawyering” is a concept that fits well with aspects of intrinsic motivation for public defense, in that attorneys are oriented toward and driven by causes that provide meaning and value to their life beyond any material benefits. The practices of cause lawyers are “devoted to the realization of their own moral aspirations” (Scheingold & Sarat, 2004, p. 2). This stands in contrast to lawyers in private practice who may feel alienated from their work and perceive a mismatch between personal, firm, and client values. Scheingold and Sarat also point out that cause lawyering involves a “deeply moral or political activity, a kind of work that encourages pursuit of their own vision of the right, the good, and the just” (p. 2). Public defenders can act as cause lawyers by fighting against injustice in the criminal justice system and inequality in society. These themes were frequently invoked by public defenders in discussions of why they stayed in their jobs, and map on to Weiss’s (2005) description of political motivations.
Intrinsic motivation coexists with extrinsic motivation for many workers, including attorneys. To this point, instrumental benefits are one of the most—if not the most—significant extrinsic motivation for employees across professions. Specifically for public defenders, the nature and structure of their work is often referenced as a part of extrinsic and pragmatic motives (Weiss, 2005). Their workflow is not reliant on seeking new clients, billing hours, selling legal services, or job market vagaries. This arrangement differs from private sector employment, where an attorney’s professional fate is more readily affected by economic fluctuations or their company’s ability to attract lucrative contracts. Furthermore, public defenders are not often in regular competition with colleagues for promotions and bonuses, as is frequently the case in private firms. In a pragmatic sense, public employee benefits, including stable health insurance and retirement accounts provide an additional motivation for public defense work. Finally, the autonomy and the flexibility in scheduling daily work tasks are important elements of extrinsic motivation for some defenders.
It is clear that the reasons underlying the decision to enter and remain in public defense are complex, involve both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and include dimensions of personal connection and values that may be unique to this type of lawyering. We argue that understanding why public defenders remain in the profession in light of multiple significant adversities is vital for designing and sustaining a fair criminal justice system. It may be the case that attorneys who have both their intrinsic and extrinsic motivations met will be less likely to leave the profession and will be better able to support their clients. Our analyses reveal that decisions to remain in public defense are multifaceted, with participants referencing a variety of themes from prior research–some of which have been prominent, whereas others have received less attention. A number of these elements can be altered through policy change, such as retirement and health care benefits. Others are less readily mailable, such as a need to fight social injustice and a sense of belonging to a community of like-minded peers. We now turn to our data and the stories and experiences that public defenders shared with us.
Method
The characteristics of our research design merit discussion, as they contextualize emergent themes and findings. We used qualitative interviews to learn about current and former public defenders’ experiences. One of the most valuable aspects of qualitative studies lies in the ability to discover new knowledge about social phenomena. This quality is especially important when the phenomenon has not been studied extensively nor recently, as is the case with assessing reasons why public defenders remain on their jobs. Unlike structured interviews performed during survey data collection, qualitative interviewers have more flexibility to direct and refocus the conversation to issues most relevant for the study (Brinkman, 2017; Warren, 2011). A qualitative interview design also allows study participants to provide detailed narrative descriptions of their experiences and to explain feelings with nuance. Thus, this approach afforded interviewers the ability to direct conversations toward broad themes of interest while also allowing interviewees to provide rich detail in their responses. The ability to discover new knowledge and obtain nuanced insight into a social phenomenon are invaluable advantages of qualitative methods that come at a tradeoff. These methods are not suited to the identification of causal effects. In most instances, they have low external validity—meaning, the extent to which the findings can be generalized to entire populations is relatively limited. Despite these tradeoffs, a qualitative approach yields detailed personal narratives from an understudied group of key actors in the criminal justice system.
Sample
Our sampling strategy could be described as a combination of snowball sampling and sampling for range (Small, 2009)—identifying subgroups within the population that are likely to have unique perspectives and experiences. We used a variety of recruitment approaches to engage current and former criminal public defenders for participation (N = 87). First, we recruited an initial pool of participants through professional networks (N = 8). In addition, investigators generated a pool of potential participants by disseminating study information through an online “listserv.” A stratified sample was then drawn from this pool (N = 67) to ensure a diverse group of participants along the lines of gender, race/ethnicity, levels of experience, urbanicity of jurisdiction, and uniqueness of caseload (e.g., capital cases). Finally, we recruited former public defenders using a snowball sample (N = 12) that obtained referrals from current public defender participants for former colleagues who recently (within the past 3 years) left for other employment. We elected to interview former public defenders to gain insight into the actual attrition process, rather than interviewing only those who have self-selected into remaining into the profession. This provided some analytical leverage into understanding the decision to leave.
Participants were compensated with US$50 for their participation in the study. Interviews were conducted between August 2017 and May 2018 and lasted between 30 and 90 min, with the majority taking place in just under 1 hr. All interviews were recorded and transcribed in full. While our interview protocol inquired about many aspects of professional life, the present analysis focused on professional retention. To inquire about retention and attrition in public defense offices, we asked participants the following open-ended interview questions: “Thinking back to the last three people who have left your office—why did they leave?” “Have you ever thought about quitting your job? Do you plan to stay on long-term as a PD?” “What are the reasons for why you’ve decided to stay?”
Because systems of public defense vary in organizational structure across the United States, we aimed to be inclusive of public defenders working across these settings during sampling. Perspectives may vary across settings, as different structures may shape resources, challenges, and supports. As shown in Table 1, our sample is comprised of three broad categories of public defenders. Salaried government public defenders (N = 53, 60.1%) work full-time and are paid by the government. Their offices may be organized at the city, county, district, state, or federal level. These defenders spend the majority of their time representing indigent criminal clients, including at the trial or appellate level. Here, we note that some defense attorneys in small, rural areas also ran private practices—but their interviews made clear that these side practices were supplemental in time and income to their government work. Nonprofit public defenders (N = 25, 28.7%) also work full-time, but for an agency that contracts with local or state government to provide indigent defense to the specified jurisdiction. Finally, contract public defenders (N = 9, 10.3%) are a relatively broad group of private attorneys who represent indigent clients full- or part-time through a variety of mechanisms. Some contract with courts to represent clients, some represent codefendants in cases that present a conflict of interest to the public defender’s office, and some are appointed to cases by the local courts. This group tends to work on indigent cases in the capacity of their other legal work, rather than in an office solely devoted to public defense.
Sample Descriptive Statistics (N = 87).
Note. “Other” case type category includes drug court, appellate, capital habeas, and domestic violence. Years of experience, representation system, and caseload out of 85 cases. M = mean.
Our sample is slightly tipped in favor of female attorneys who compose 54% of participants. The majority of our sample included people who self-identified as White. Black and Hispanic attorneys comprised 10% and 9% of the sample, respectively. The average age of the participants was 40 years and their average tenure in the occupation was close to 10 years. Most participants mainly worked with adult clients. Nine participants worked with juvenile and 11 worked with both adult and juvenile defendants. About a third worked mainly on felonies, with about the same handling mainly misdemeanors. The rest either worked on both or more specialized dockets, such as drug courts or appellate representation. Finally, we had a fair amount of variation in the magnitude of the caseload. The modal caseload category was between 50 and 99 cases at a given time. 1 Twenty attorneys in the sample reported having more than 150 cases, whereas only two reported fewer than 10. Our participants were employed in 17 states as well as in the federal system. The majority of participants came from the following three states, as shown in Table 2: New York (23%), Indiana (17.2%), and Idaho (19.5%). All other states provided fewer than 10% of interviews.
Public Defenders in Sample by State.
Analysis
We developed a set of initial codes that reflected the broad categories of interview questions, including professional background, motivations to become a public defender, relationships with clients and other courtroom actors, workplace environment, and stress and resilience. We utilized a flexible coding approach using qualitative data analysis software (NVivo 12), which is methodologically appropriate for our volume of qualitative data and multicoder approach (Deterding & Waters, in press). Thus, our analytic framework is both inductive and theoretically driven, and our coding process involved indexing, analytic coding, and conceptual validation phases (Deterding & Waters, in press).
Specifically, three coders each reviewed one third of the interview transcripts to open code data according to the identified set of initial codes. At the same time, coders also developed a set of axial codes emergent from interview responses that deviated from or expanded upon these initial themes. These coder-specific axial codes were then combined thematically into a master list of primary codes and subthemes. Each author then reread a subset of interview transcripts and labeled passages according to the full set of coding options so that all of the transcripts were coded in full for 32 primary codes and secondary codes that reflect the diversity of topics in the interview guide. Many passages were coded for several different themes. We report counts of how many times each theme was mentioned across interviews in Table 3. Clients and public sector benefits were the most frequently mentioned reasons to stay on the job, followed closely by social inequality and personal values.
Counts of Theme Occurrence in Interviews.
We generated query reports in NVivo (12) for the codes and subcodes of interest for the present research question. Most were organized under the “reasons to stay” thematic code, a theme that included intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and several subcodes: clients, the Constitution, social inequality, and personal values (intrinsic motivations); colleagues and public sector benefits (extrinsic motivations). The first and second author each reviewed the query report output for each code and subcode that contained all interview passages labeled with this theme. Next, the first and second author independently selected representative quotations for publication within each theme and subtheme. Where there was consensus between authors, quotes were selected for article inclusion; additional quotations were weighed collaboratively for inclusion. All names in this article are pseudonyms. Finally, the authors utilized NVivo 12’s “Explore” functions to examine coding treemaps, compare prevalence of themes, and sort results into “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” categories based on distinctions in prior literature. These final steps conceptually validated the claims made below.
Results
In this section, we use our data to assess the reasons why public defenders (PDs) remain on the job. We start with intrinsic motivations.
Intrinsic Motivations
Clients
For the most part, attorneys view their indigent clients as pitted against a much more powerful adversary in the criminal justice system, especially prosecutors. The only protection standing between defendants and the system is the public defender. This feeling comes from a place of deep understanding for who the clients are and where they come from, particularly the social disadvantage that defined and restricted their life chances. Grant, a 42-year-old White attorney working in a governmental defender’s office put it this way: What motivates me probably the most—well, there are several things—one of them is that just representing the underdog, that’s an American ideal anyway. Representing people who really don’t have another option in their lives and they’re poor and they don’t have resources, they don’t have those things. Being able to be somebody that can say, “The system still needs to treat you fairly and stand up for their rights.” Then, for me, at least, it’s just as fulfilling to help people through the process of finding recovery, if it’s drug addiction, or what kind of treatment they need. I’ve enjoyed being a part of that process.
Furthermore, working with and caring for clients encourages a perspective where public defenders view clients as human beings who need other types of assistance. This approach is in line with the movement toward indigent defense as a holistic practice that considers the complexity of social and psychological conditions that put people within the criminal justice system and in front of public defenders in the first place (Lee, Ostrom, & Kleiman, 2015; Steinberg, 2006). Kayla (47 years old, biracial, governmental PD) and Janice (45 years old, White, governmental PD) affirmed these sentiments: They want to feel like we give a crap about who they are and what they’re going through, and what they’ve been through, in their lives. They want someone to listen to them. Even if you lose their case, even if you lose at trial, if they feel cared for, and like you fought for them, then they’re okay with that loss. I think that’s why I stay. Because that’s a pretty great feeling, when someone says to you “Thank you for never giving up on me, and thank you for fighting for me.” [T]he times I feel the best are when my clients succeed in their rehabilitation and they can get clean and sober, get an education, get a job.
Attorneys were well attuned to the direct positive impacts they could have on clients’ lives. These successes might be especially important in a job where employees tend to repeatedly encounter challenges associated with pay, stress, resources, and time. As Shea, a 31-year-old, Asian American, former public defender who worked for a governmental office pointed out, [I]t doesn’t pay well and it’s really stressful, not always pleasant, but I knew at the end of every day that I had made people’s lives better. I felt, not in every case but in enough cases, the fact that I was standing next to that person made their situation better. . . . So you have to redefine what winning means, but definitely the thing which I love most about the job is the clients, the fact that you can have a direct impact on the individual and can really help them and treat them like human beings when everybody else is against them.
It is important to note that participants did not universally reference positive experiences with clients. Despite these intrinsic rewards, working with clients can also be a source of frustration. This is what Chase, a White 38-year-old former public defender, said when asked about her experiences on the job: My clients were by far my favorite part of my job. I’m probably going to get choked up, even thinking about it, because it’s the thing I miss the most. Even the challenging clients, especially the challenging clients, I liked. I really liked learning how different clients needed different things. [. . .] I just really enjoyed trying to crack what the most effective way of communicating with my clients was. I didn’t always succeed at that. I can distinctly remember a couple of clients who we just couldn’t ever get to a place where we saw each other or heard each other, or trusted each other.
The Constitution
Some public defenders discussed the importance of upholding the Constitution. In some responses, this belief materialized in the form of what has been described as “civil libertarianism” (Smith, 2004). Luciana, a 30-year-old Hispanic defender, exemplified this sentiment when asked about the misconceptions the public have about the work of public defenders: I think if you put yourself in somebody’s shoes and think about who you would want to stand next to you, we would all want somebody who listened and knew the law and was willing to uphold your constitutional rights. That’s really what public defenders do. They’re constitutional warriors, who demand that the constitution is followed and upheld in every case.
Similarly, Andres, a 43-year-old White contract defender, highlighted that defending the rights of a single person is practically equivalent to defending the rights of everyone: I’m sort of making sure that everybody’s got their freedom and their rights. If one person gets railroaded, that’s an attack on everybody. I’m defending, really, everybody’s freedom, at a certain level. I find that to be fulfilling
Calvin, a 48-year-old Black former public defender, focused on the importance of holding police officers accountable: It’s important because the more highly trained that these people are, you would think the less errors that would happen. Obviously, people are going to be highly trained as police officers and they still make mistakes. I just want to reduce the number of mistakes that are being made, that’s why I try to fight hard for every single client, to try and reduce the errors in the system, one client at a time.
Social inequality
Our participants explicitly acknowledged systemic social inequalities. Being a public defender can help one see these issues more clearly and may have a profound impact on thinking about crime and punishment. Alyssa, a 40-year-old White defender at a governmental agency, with previous intern experience working at a district attorney’s office, referenced how experiences in the system altered her personal perspective: But as I got a little older and a little bit less naive, and certainly experienced the criminal justice system from the prosecutor’s side, I saw that a lot of people, most of my clients now, don’t have a lot of say in what happens to them and how they end up where they are, and there’s so much privilege that comes with not having lives like my clients have. From where they are in the womb and how somebody’s choices outside the womb affect them and their development from before they are even born can really affect brain development, everything. I think my morals necessarily didn’t change, but my viewpoint opened up and my willingness to accept that humans need help as well.
Personal values
Another aspect of intrinsic motivation that emerged during interviews was the personal values that public defenders bring to the job. These values inform both their private and their professional lives, as exemplified by Chase, a 38-year-old White former public defender: [M]y strong sense of myself is that my purpose on this planet is to help other human beings. And not in any sort of religious or spiritual thing. Again, I am not a religious human being. But just that I feel like I don’t know what else I would be doing with my days and my time, unless I wasn’t actively involved with making the world a better place. And particularly, finding the people that everybody else ignores or disadvantages or throws away.
Political ideology was often enmeshed with personal values. We heard from attorneys who positioned themselves on either end of the political spectrum. Interviewees from different political camps, however, were united by a shared recognition of the importance of standing up to a powerful system on behalf of individuals or disadvantaged groups. This is how Lewis, a 55-year-old White nonprofit defender, described how his personal values and political leanings fit together to inform his work: I tend to be libertarian in my politics, so I believe in limited government, and I believe that public defender work is a check that is necessary on the police powers of the state. If we weren’t here, things would be awfully bad. I call myself a speed bump on the highway of justice.
In sum, our description of intrinsic motivations has first focused on relationships with clients. The ability to make a difference in clients’ lives, even if case disposition is unfavorable, also makes a difference in the lives of public defenders. When the traditionally considered successful legal outcome is relatively rare, such as acquittal, the success is redefined and refocused on having an impact through engaging in a respectful and thoughtful process with the client. Upholding the Constitution is related to the theme of caring for the client; by fighting for the rights of each individual, public defenders see themselves as making a difference for everyone. For some, the intrinsic motivation switches to a macro level where injustice experienced by individuals is aggregated to the societal level in the form of social inequality. Interestingly, these intrinsic motivations can cut across political ideologies when personal values from either side of the political spectrum inform and motivate the work of public defenders to stand for the person against the state.
Extrinsic Motivations
Colleagues
Public defenders commonly pointed to their colleagues as an important reason for staying on the job. Angelina, a 27-year-old Hispanic nonprofit defender, highlighted the importance of working with people one likes and that one can build a close personal and professional bond with: I love my colleagues. I don’t—there’s not one person that I don’t think that I don’t get along with. I actually have created a bond. I have a best friend in the office now. One of my colleagues is going to live with me for a little bit. We all get along. We’re all in it together, so it’s like, we all cover for each other and we all bounce ideas off.
Participants frequently expressed how being “all in it together” was important for coping with the challenges of indigent defense. When asked about the morale in their office, Libby, a 29-year-old Hispanic government public defender, described that public defenders often create strong bonds because of the time spent together and the common mission of fighting for their clients: What I would say generally about public defender morale is that, and the culture, is that because the work is so hard, you are very close with your coworkers and support staff. You are dealing with traumatizing cases and you are dealing with disconcerting facts. You spend more time with these people than you spend with your family. I spend more time with the people at work than I spend with my child and my husband, because of that, if you can’t get along with people, you’re just screwed. You need your support staff, you need the other attorneys in the office. I would say it’s very war-like, I don’t know if that’s the right term. You bond. You feel like you’re going to war every day, and these are your buddies in the trenches. To that extent, you develop pretty close bonds with people.
Public defenders in our sample described a deep sense of camaraderie and belonging in the interviews. Colleagues can be a source of support and motivation to keep moving forward, especially when the job becomes taxing. As Immanuel, a 38-year-old White man who works at a nonprofit defense office, put it, There are ups and downs, but I think overall what makes the public defense community almost unique, maybe not unique, but definitely stands out, is that it’s so supportive and loving. Personally, some of my best friends are in the office and it feels like family.
Good relationships with colleagues can make it easier to deal with moments of disappointment and frustration. Gabrielle, a salaried government public defender who is 40 years old and White, described how a shared mind-set—feeling that everyone is doing the job for the same reasons (“fighting the good fight”) and having similar experiences advocating for disadvantaged and unfortunate clients—helps her continue in this work: I think in terms of the morale, everyone wants to be here, they chose this, they sought it out, they made sacrifices, financial perhaps, to be here. People get down on the facts of cases, the facts that our clients are not the crimes that they commit, but what happens to them as a result. We have a lot of people you feel very sympathetic to. I think it can be emotionally trying, and then trying when you lose cases you think you should win. There’s that, that can bring people down. There’s a sense that we’re all in this together and fighting the good fight. I think that helps make you want to go to work each day and care about what you do.
Importantly, relationships with colleagues were especially salient for two of three groups in the sample. The contract/conflict/appointed public defenders spoke less frequently about their colleagues, as these attorneys tended to do their indigent defense work outside of a shared office and/or were the only attorneys responsible for this docket in their jurisdiction. While some mentioned collegial interactions with other contract defenders in the courtroom, this group did not express feeling similar support and camaraderie from these interactions as defenders consistently working together.
Benefits
The second aspect of extrinsic motivation relates to employment-related benefits. Because there is high variation in salary and benefits for public defenders across the country, these sentiments did not apply uniformly across counties and states. One particularly salient benefit was the retirement package, which sometimes took the form of matching contributions, which kick in after a few years. As Sofia, a 34-year-old White Hispanic government public defender put it, I know that five years is a big marker for people, as far as their retirement goes. The people who are older and who have been around forever, if they retire on their state pension, they get a 100 percent match. They have incentive to stay at that point. They’ve been putting in money all these years, then if they retire, they get a 100 percent match. Then if you’re done before five years, you’re just done, I think a lot of people try to hit five years, so that they’re vested in their benefits and then they leave, if it’s not working.
Affordable health insurance was also referenced as a critical benefit, especially for those with chronic medical conditions needing regular care. This was the case for Brett, who is 46 years old, White, and works at a nonprofit: The pay is okay, for me. It’s guaranteed health insurance. I had some major surgeries in the last couple of years that require me to carry health insurance. The instability with the current administration, and how they’re going to regulate health care and the accessibility of health care to people purchasing private insurance, is kind of up in the air. I’m not comfortable going back into private practice, not knowing whether or not I’ll be able to buy it, if they’re going to take away the pre-existing condition exceptions, and things like that.
While the benefits were not the only (nor necessarily the primary) reason why public defenders decided to stay on the job, these structural perks often operated as a (sometimes decisive) nudge to stay, despite the many daily strains of the work. These benefits seem to be especially important, as public defenders often earn relatively lower salaries than attorneys in private firms and even in the prosecutors’ office. Participants also pointed out other benefits, including student loan forgiveness schemes and union protections. Stephanie (33 years old, White, governmental office), for instance, described student loans as a “big scary cloud”: Obviously, student loans, there’s always that big scary cloud hanging over you and hopefully, we can get some loan forgiveness, but that’s unclear now. That’s always a little scary.
In sum, like-minded colleagues, who share similar goals and support each other, are an invaluable aspect of being a public defender, identified in our and other studies. This is especially relevant relative to private law firms where the level of competition is much higher and therefore these workplace environments are less conducive to building and sustaining camaraderie and a sense of common mission. Another point contrasted to the private sector, but in a more instrumental sense is the relatively generous public sector benefits, especially for attorneys employed by state governments. The benefits seemed to help offset the lack of compensation parity with other legal fields. Even though the benefits were not typically considered the main or the only reason to become a public defender, they play a large role given the high and rising cost of legal education and, in times of economic downturn, the dearth of employment in the private sector.
Discussion and Conclusion
In this section, we consider how our findings align with prior research, identify themes and approaches important for future research, and tentatively address policy implications. In general, we agree with Smith (2004) on the importance of understanding what sustains public defenders in the long term and makes it a career-long calling. Over time, attorneys may become more skilled and efficient. Veteran public defenders tend to produce better outcomes for clients, such as lower duration of incarceration (Abrams & Yoon, 2007). It is thus important to understand the long-term motivations of public defenders to remain on the job, to identify policies that can facilitate longevity, as tenure can improve system outcomes and functioning. Our findings suggest a variety of motivations that keep public defenders on the job.
Public defenders in our sample referenced both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for staying in their positions. Interviewees cited several facets of intrinsic motivation, including representing indigent clients, protecting Constitutional rights, challenging social inequality through legal means, and working in a job that aligns with one’s personal values. In addition, interviewed public defenders also referenced extrinsic motivations, including strong professional and personal bonds with their colleagues and fringe benefits from their employers.
Importantly, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can overlap and conflict with one another to be jointly detrimental to retention (Lepper & Henderlong, 2000). When people are offered instrumental rewards for what they perceive as intrinsically rewarding work, their interest may be lost or diminished in the long run as extrinsic rewards subside (Deci, 1971). Workers can have their essential needs met—in terms of autonomy, competence, and relatedness—and choose to remain on the job when both sets of motivation are present (Ryan & Deci, 2018). On the contrary, professional contexts that thwart the realization of those needs may ultimately diminish employee motivation, life satisfaction, and well-being (Lepper & Henderlong, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000). Specifically, for public defenders, their intrinsic motivation may diminish if they feel that external rewards are no longer adequate. Because of this tenuous and complex balance between intrinsic and extrinsic work motivation, the system of incentives used to recruit and sustain public interest attorneys—especially public defenders—should recognize and address both.
There are points of alignment between our findings and those from prior research on public defender motivations. In line with our findings, both Wice (2005) and Weiss (2005) highlighted camaraderie as a major source of sustaining motivation for public defenders. Weiss (2005) placed emphasis on public employee benefits as a significant component of pragmatic motivation for public defenders. Similarly, our participants recognized the relative generosity and stability of benefits as a strong motivation to remain in the profession. Overall—and similar to Weiss (2005)—we learned that no single aspect of motivation is a dominant explanation of why attorneys remained on the job. Any policy to retain public defenders needs to take this into account.
There were also points of divergence between our results and prior research. For example, Smith (2004) argued that the need to protect the Constitution is not a sustaining motivation. In contrast, our interviewees identified Constitutional idealism as a vital, but perhaps not the singular or most important, aspect of the decision to stay on the job. While Smith (2004) acknowledged the role of camaraderie in attracting and sustaining public defenders, it is not among the three lifelong motivations—respect for clients, pride in professional craft, and a sense of outrage. We did, however, find respect for clients and a sense of outrage—couched in terms of deep concerns about social injustice—as prominent themes in our interviews. The Newark-based study (Wice, 2005) uncovered prominent themes of autonomy and personal freedom; these concepts emerged inconsistently in our research. In addition, Wice’s (2005) work identified clients as a primarily negative aspect of the job because of their distrust and lack of appreciation for assigned attorneys. Conversely, our participants primarily described clients as a positive aspect of the job. Finally, Weiss’s (2005) results emphasized trial work as another component of pragmatic motivation that provides a forum where attorneys can showcase their skills and engage in intellectually challenging work. Yet, such benefits of trial work did not emerge as prominent in our interviews.
Future research should recognize work motivation as a complex phenomenon that involves various elements that operate in combination, rather than isolation. A longitudinal study could not only tease apart constituent elements of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, but also assess the extent to which they endure across legal careers. The “After the JD” study (Dinovitzer & Garth, 2004) has been one such research effort, as it followed a cohort of almost 5,000 new lawyers over time in a national sample. Longitudinal research design can address selection biases that plague cross-sectional research on career development and evolution in the legal profession, and may be well suited to studying these topics.
Furthermore, researchers should be mindful of the great diversity in the work experiences and resources public defenders have across the country. Although we have captured a great deal of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in our sample, we were able to interview only those attorneys who have responded to our call to be in the study, most of whom were from the Midwest and the Northeast and worked as full-time public defenders. The motivations described here are thus not necessarily the only nor the most important to the universe of public defenders working across the United States. To increase external validity, future research should not only aim to more comprehensively sample all regions of the United States, but also examine variation in motivations by demographic and employment characteristics. It is possible that motivations to stay on the job are different depending on the characteristics of the defenders themselves (gender or race) or the type of clients public defenders represent (juveniles or adults). Although our sample included a variety of employment arrangements, future research should continue to examine defenders’ experiences across these organizational structures.
Our study was not designed with the explicit goal of testing or creating policy prescriptions about public defender retention. For this reason, we can speak only tentatively about the policy implications of our findings. Perhaps the most efficient way to ensure that public defenders remain on the job is by reducing their caseloads, a point that researchers and practitioners have made before (Baxter, 2012; Lynch, 1997). Because participants identified the importance of social justice as a motivator, providing more opportunities to engage in criminal justice reform could sustain public defenders by allowing them to have a greater systemic impact. This role may be facilitated with the adoption of holistic defense approaches—for example, by increasing access to resources such as social workers who can address clients’ challenges outside of the legal system (Lee et al., 2015; Steinberg, 2006). A recent study revealed that holistic defense can reduce the frequency and length of prison sentences (Anderson, Buenaventura, & Heaton, 2019). These outcomes may boost morale for those motivated by social justice and, in turn, increase their retention. Finally, ensuring that public defenders are supported with tangible resources—including appropriate salaries and loan forgiveness programs—could make a difference between choosing to serve the public or to serve private interests.
In conclusion, by using a diverse sample, we were able to tease out new and confirm existing reasons for why public defenders stay on the job. By understanding their motivations better, we can start to consider more systematically how to sustain attorneys who choose this challenging, yet critical professional path. At the same time, given the importance of experience for the quality of legal representation, and the fact that the majority of the criminal defendants use public defenders (Abrams & Yoon, 2007; Worden & Davies, 2014), improving retention has the potential to significantly improve the functioning of the criminal justice system on the whole.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Andrew Davies and Janet Moore for the exceptionally constructive feedback on an earlier version of the article. Our thanks also go to Elizabeth Marshall for help with the initial design of the study and Ashley Jackson for assistance with data collection. We would especially like to thank the current and former public defenders who have taken the time to be interviewed and generously share their stories with us.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Rutgers University–Newark Chancellor’s Seed Grant Program.
