Public Defenseless Features Jon Rapping of Gideon’s Promise

This week on the Public Defenseless Podcast, I had the honor of speaking with a man who for many, needs no introduction. Jon Rapping, Founder and Executive Director of Gideon's Promise plays a massive role in shaping the training, thinking, and most importantly, culture of the next generation of great Public Defender leaders. Through his work with Gideon's Promise, he and his organization have taken massive steps into helping defenders learn to hone their story telling skills so that they may become better client centered Public Defenders. 

 

As any of us who have been in any organization, the culture set from the top down is vital to fostering the type of work environment that is essential to producing quality work and happy, engaged people. No where is this more important than in the tiresome, and often, defeating work that is Public Defense. It can be so easy to be worn down by a broken system that disregards the lives of those processed through it, but I think with the insight of minds like Rap's, a culture can spring up that helps to combat the powerful feelings of defeat and nihilism that can easily grip the minds of those who see first hand the cruelty of our legal system. 

 

Take a moment today to think about how we can keep pushing the positive work the Rap and his team have embarked on over the past decade plus, so that together, we can be the generation of Public Defense that fulfills Gideon's Promise. 

 

To listen