Why free lawyers shouldn’t come cheap

Ryan Ruzic has just about reached the point in his public defender career where he’s supposed to stop being a public defender.

With nearly five years’ experience he’s one of the veteran lawyers in his office, but he’s now supposed to be at a breaking point. The well of energy and youthful idealism that fueled working long hours for low pay against better-resourced opposition typically runs dry at this point, and the realities of supporting a family and paying off student debt usually drive young public defenders to the greener pastures of private practice right when they’re mastering their jobs.

He hasn’t reached that point yet, and he hopes he never will.

“I could absolutely see myself doing public defense for the rest of my career,” he says. “It’s an upward climb … but I want a job that feels like it matters, and I want a job that I enjoy doing, and this job gives me both those things.”

Mr. Ruzic is a portrait of much that is right with the American legal system. But he is also a symbol of how it has become, in the eyes of many officials and experts, badly out of balance, potentially breeding mistakes and putting public safety at risk…

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