Gideon’s Promise Announces 2014 Law School Partnership Program Recipients

Staff Report

Gideon’s Promise announced Tuesday its Law School Partnership Program (LSPP) 2014 class – a group of 15 recent law school graduates poised to join a growing movement of public defenders committed to transforming criminal justice.

The LSPP is a partnership between the Atlanta-based nonprofit Gideon’s Promise – which is dedicated to reforming public defense; the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA); participating law schools from across the country, and public defender offices in the Southeast where Gideon’s Promise is primarily focused. The program recruits talented, third-year law students who are interested in public service and places them in positions at underserved public defender offices. Students who participate in the LSPP receive a commitment of a permanent job within one year from the public defenders’ offices where they are placed.

“The LSPP gives passionate law school graduates the ability to serve where the need is the greatest to ensure our criminal justice system lives up to its highest ideals,” said Jonathan Rapping, founder and president of Buckhead-headquartered Gideon’s Promise. “Each participant will learn valuable skills that are essential to beginning an important, meaningful legal career that ensures equal justice is a reality for everyone in this country.”

This year’s LSPP participants include:    

American University Washington College of Law, Corrine Warren and Kelly Pretzer;

Boston University School of Law, Thomas McCants;

George Washington University Law School, Adam Pienciak, Jack Talaska and Thomas Rimmer;

Harvard Law School, Stephanie Berger;

New York University School of Law, Candace Mitchell;

Northwestern University School of Law, Ben Israel, Rebba Omer and Brett Werenski;

University of Chicago Law School, Karen Orzechowski,

UCLA School of Law, Arienna Grody; and

Vanderbilt Law School, Jose Costales and William Howell

LSPP participants also receive the Gideon’s Promise signature Core 101 training – a three-year program that offers the tools public defenders need to provide meaningful representation to clients under difficult circumstances and to learn strategies to resist pressures to adapt to the status quo of processing clients through the system quickly. It also provides a place within a growing community of defenders committed to a common value set.

“The work these young lawyers do represents the highest calling of our profession,” Rapping said. “We are grateful to these schools for working with Gideon’s Promise and the Department of Justice to provide these graduates this opportunity, and we are proud of their dedication to serving our nation’s most vulnerable citizens.”

To date, 10 of the nation’s top law schools have joined this initiative including: American University Washington College of Law; Boston University School of Law; George Washington University Law School; New York University School of Law; Northwestern University School of Law; University of California, Berkeley School of Law; University of Chicago Law School; University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law, Harvard University School of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. The goal is to expand the program to at least 20 law schools and 20 public defender’s offices, and to place 20 law students in their public service careers by 2016.

“Fifty-one years after the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court made it clear that equal justice depends on poor people having access to quality representation, and in most of the country this promise remains unfulfilled,” Rapping said. “The LSPP gives law schools a vehicle to finally help their graduates work to make this ideal a reality. This model is a critical piece of any effort to reform criminal justice in this country, ensuring ‘justice for all’ is not an empty promise, but a commitment that rings true for every single American.”

Nearly 80 percent of the 12 million people who move annually through America’s criminal justice system cannot afford a lawyer. As a result, many innocent people plead guilty simply because they cannot afford to take their case to trial. The public defender system is so overwhelmed by crushing volume, that adequate and meaningful defense often fails them as well.

Last year, Rapping and Gideon’s Promise were featured in the HBO documentary, “Gideon’s Army,” which follows three young public defenders, trained by Rapping and Gideon’s Promise, in their sometimes heart breaking quest for equal justice in indigent defense. The organization has now trained and supported more than 250 public defenders, who collectively represent tens of thousands of people each year.  This summer, it will welcome 61 new public defenders to its annual Summer Institute,  its largest class to date.

For more information about Gideon’s Promise, please visit www.GideonsPromise.org, or contact (404) 935-6166.