Connor Barusch (“Barusch”) (he/they) joined CPCS, the Massachusetts Public Defender, in 2011, working as a trial attorney in several different neighborhoods in Boston at the District Court and Superior Court levels. He is currently the Criminal Defense Training Director at CPCS. During law school, Barusch co-founded and worked at a free legal clinic called Massachusetts Transgender Legal Advocates. Before joining CPCS, they worked as a law clerk at the Massachusetts Appeals Court and as an associate at Kauffman Crozier LLP, an LGBT family law firm. Barusch loves trying cases, cooking, running and playing board games.

Barusch became interested in public defender work after witnessing and beginning to understand the impact of mass incarceration on queer people, especially queer people of color. As a white person, Barusch believes that white public defenders should take on a special role in combating racism against our clients as well as standing in solidarity with our public defender colleagues of color. He is constantly on a journey of learning to hold himself and other white public defenders accountable for the mistakes we make in our jobs and in our lives related to racism and would love to have conversations with the NCDC community about what accountability and solidarity should look like.

Paul Rudof is an attorney at the law firm of Strehorn, Ryan, and Hoose in Northampton, Massachusetts where he focuses on criminal defense at both the trial and appellate levels and civil rights litigation. He practices in both state and federal court. Before entering private practice, Paul worked for 18 years as a public defender at the Committee for Public Counsel Services (“CPCS”) in Massachusetts, first in the Essex County office, then in the Public Defender Training Unit, and finally as the state-wide Public Defender Co-Counsel.

Paul has been a faculty member at the National Criminal Defense College since 2006 and has lectured on trial skills, forensics, and substantive law to defender organizations throughout the country. After graduating from law school at the University of Utah, Paul clerked for the Honorable Michael Murphy on the 10th Circuit United States Court of Appeals. Paul earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Brown University and, prior to law school, worked as a middle school teacher in Washington, D.C. and a community organizer in Tucson, Arizona.