Joanna Shepherd on Public Defenders

Joanna Shepherd December 10, 2024

ICLE Nonresident Scholar Joanna Shepherd was quoted by MassLive in a story about the rarity of public defenders earning judicial appointments. You can read the full piece here.

That’s a dramatic shift from what’s come before. A 2019 study showed that 60% of sitting judge U.S. appellate court judges had a corporate law background, Emory University Law professor Joanna Shepherd wrote in a 2021 analysis.

In addition, 2020 data showed that more than 70% of active federal appellate judges had spent their careers in private practice or as federal prosecutors, Shepherd wrote.