Spotlight on Wellness & Sustainability
Wellness in public defense is a professional requirement, not a luxury. Public defense work has evolved and, in the modern era, demands extraordinary individual commitment to providing holistic defense. However, sustainability requires shifting from individual responsibility to shared organizational responsibility. Among public defense professionals and in recent publications, it has become a common discussion that […]
Moving Beyond Yoga: Solutions for Improving Public Defenders’ Work Life and Effectiveness
By Alisa Smith, JD, Ph.D, Professor of Legal Studies, University of Central Florida A recent article drawing on the responses of a national sample of public defenders affiliated with the National Association for Public Defense supported prior research findings that public defenders are intrinsically motivated to do this work and suffer stress from observing injustices. They were […]