Professor Jonathan Rapping Receives a Federal Grant to Launch National Public Defender Fellowship Initiative

The Southern Public Defender Training Center (SPDTC), founded and run by Professor Rapping, was awarded $700,000.00 to partner with Equal Justice Works to develop the Public Defender Corps (PDC), a national fellowship program for public defenders based on the SPDTC model. The PDC will place its inaugural class of Fellows in public defender offices throughout the U.S. beginning Summer 2011. In a highly competitive process, approximately 500 applicants have applied for 18 Fellowship positions. Read more about this initiative in the Daily Report. Professor Rapping’s work is also highlighted in a recent article on the national state of indigent defense in The American Prospect.