Staff Attorney

New Hampshire Public Defender is hiring for all 10 of its trial offices throughout the state of New Hampshire: Concord, Dover, Keene, Laconia, Littleton, Manchester, Nashua, Newport, Orford and Stratham.

Applicants for 3L Staff Attorney positions must be entering or in their final year of law school and anticipate graduating from an accredited law school. The program also welcomes applicants who have graduated from law school, are pursuing a judicial clerkship or fellowship, and want to begin their public defender careers immediately afterwards.
Successful candidates will have pursued and distinguished themselves in academic coursework which prepares them for a career as a public defender, such as courses in evidence, trial advocacy, criminal procedure, and constitutional law. In addition, they will have pursued opportunities to participate in criminal clinical programs offered by their law schools, or internship and externship opportunities at public defender offices.

Each new public defender will participate in the program's 5-week long New Lawyer Training. New public defenders will be assigned a mentor and will meet with them at least weekly. The Managing Attorney, who assigns cases, is responsible for carefully monitoring the new lawyer’s case load. New public defenders will initially be responsible for a smaller caseload consisting of misdemeanor and youth cases. They will receive felony cases and co-counseling opportunities with experienced lawyers typically within the first few months of their employment. By the end of the first year, a new lawyer will be responsible for a full caseload consisting of felonies, misdemeanors, delinquency mattes, and others (probation/parole violations and other post-conviction matters).

Experienced public defenders may handle the most serious cases, including homicides and aggravated felonious sexual assaults. The program provides on-going training to all its attorneys twice a year and periodically offers attorneys the opportunity to attend outside trainings.

Applicants must be a member of the New Hampshire Bar, eligible to waive into the New Hampshire Bar with a qualifying Uniform Bar Examination score, or qualified for, prepared to take, and pass the New Hampshire Bar Examination by July 2026.

This position will begin in August of 2026.