stephen.hanlon

Mr. Hanlon has a long history of handling public interest and civil rights cases. In 1989, he founded the Community Services Team (CST) at Holland & Knight and for the next 23 years he served as the Partner in Charge of the CST, which during Mr. Hanlon’s tenure was the largest full-time private practice pro bono department in the nation. In 1997, Holland and Knight received the ABA Pro Bono Publico Award. The American Lawyer described Holland and Knight as a “pro bono champion.” In 2006, Mr. Hanlon received the Chesterfield Smith Award from Holland & Knight, the firm’s highest individual recognition given to a firm partner. Since his retirement from Holland & Knight at the end of 2012, Mr. Hanlon has confined his practice to assisting and representing public defenders with excessive caseloads. He now serves as General Counsel to the National Association for Public Defense in Washington, D.C. Mr. Hanlon was lead counsel for the Missouri Public Defender in State ex rel. Mo. Public Defender Commission, 370 S.W.3d 592 (Mo.banc 2012), which was the first state supreme court case to uphold the right of a public defender organization to refuse additional cases when confronted with excessive caseloads. The Waters case has been described as a “watershed moment” in indigent defense. Davies, Andrew Lucas Blaize Davies, “How Do We ‘Do Data’ in Public Defense?,” 78 Albany Law Review 1179. Mr. Hanlon was the Project Director for the American Bar Association in the critically acclaimed study of the workload of the Missouri Public Defender undertaken by RubinBrown on behalf of the American Bar Association, known as “The Missouri Project,” available at www.indigentdefense.org, He currently serves as the Project Director for similar studies in several states.