RE-RELEASE: How Moral Injury, Stress, and Trauma Impact Public Defense with Jenny Andrews

Mar 28

Today is a re-release of my conversation with Jenny Andrews. It comes as a right before two episodes covering the ceasefire resolution put out by the UAW ALAA 2325 union that represents Public Defenders and Legal Aid Workers at the New York Legal Aid Society, the Bronx Defenders, Camba Legal Services, and much more.

Jenny Andrews is the Director of Training for California’s Indigent Defense Improvement Division. She’s here today to teach you what public defense is truly like from the defender’s side. Public defenders are often trapped between a rock and a hard place because they want to provide equal representation access, yet are expected to work too many hours for not enough pay. Because of this, “martyr complex” is prevalent in this field. You’ll learn that public defense is an area of service, but that this often comes at the expense of the defender’s mental health. Jenny will walk you through how she’s helping implement self-care practices into nationwide and why self-care is vital to providing zealous representation! Throughout this episode, remember that ultimately, it is the client who suffers when the public defender suffers in silence

Key Topics and Takeaways:

Jenny’s background and how she got started in public defense. [7:50]

Why Jenny burnt out and left the industry. [14:18]

Moral injury. [21:58]

Self-care in public defense. [26:32]

Secondary trauma. [33:36]

How Jenny has been building a culture of self-care. [42:50]

How individual offices are promoting self-care. [48:28]

The line between service and self-care. [53:14]

Guest:

Jenny Andrews, Director of Training, Indigent Defense Improvement Division, Office of the State Public Defender, California

Resources: