Going public: J school grad is a Boone County defender

Tom Porto's day starts at 6 a.m.

By Harry Plumer

Published April 25, 2008

The days do not begin gloriously for Boone County Public Defender Tom Porto. Up at 6 a.m. to the tune of one or more cups of coffee, Porto prepares himself for the toil and unpredictability of another day at the office.

“This job requires you to roll with the punches,” Porto said. “Every day is something different.”

Indeed, Porto finds himself doing everything from appearing in juvenile court to defend a 15-year-old boy who threw a notebook at a teacher in school to visiting a client in jail who violated a restraining order.

“I want to stand up for what’s right for people,” Porto said. “The thing I liked best about law school was the trial classes and the litigation classes, stuff I get to do here as a public defender.”

But Porto, a 2004 MU School of Journalism graduate, didn’t originally set out on this path of righteousness.

“I wanted to be a journalist,” Porto said. “I graduated from the J school, and there were no jobs, so I went to law school in Kansas City.”

Porto’s crowning achievement as a journalist was a blurb published in the ESPN magazine about the Kansas City Royals, a topic that never seems to be far from his head, literally. Porto’s Royals hat can be seen hanging on his coat rack every day.

Now, in the defender’s office, he often finds himself in bed before his beloved Royals finish their weeknight games. Yet the long days and early nights don’t seem to rattle Porto.

“This is the kind of job where you’re really tired at the end of the day,” Porto said. “That’s the kind of job you want to have.”

While Porto took a roundabout route to his position, others in the Boone County Defender’s office graduated from institutions such as Harvard and the University of Michigan, schools that don’t often send their students to public service.

“Hardly anyone from Harvard ever works in public defense and legal aid,” said Rick Sennitt, a Boston lawyer. “It just doesn’t really happen.”

Porto said he’s thrilled to work with his colleagues here in Columbia.

“I would feel extremely comfortable being defended in a case by the other people in this office,” Porto said. “I feel fortunate to share space and even be around them, as a graduate of UMKC law school, I feel like I’m getting away with murder being able to work here.”

But Porto’s lack of a big name on his degree doesn’t seem to affect the quality of his work. He handles more than 60 cases at a time, and the people he shares space with in the courtroom have nothing but fantastic things to say.

“Tom does a really good job in court,” Boone County Prosecuting Attorney and common Porto courtroom foe Andrea Hayes said. “The best lawyers are zealous advocates for their clients, and Tom definitely is a great advocate.”

Public defending is relatively new in American law. Until the 1963 Gideon v. Wainwright Supreme Court case, states were not required to provide counsel to those who could not afford it.

In Gideon, the Supreme Court established that the right to counsel is part of a fair trial, and thus can be applied through the U.S. Constitution’s Sixth Amendment.

“After Gideon was provided an attorney, the prosecution’s case was thrown out in less than an hour,” said David Carroll, director of research for the National Legal Aid and Defense Association. “It’s vitally important to provide legal counsel to those indigent people who are unable to get their own attorney.”

The public defender system in Missouri was instituted in 1972, beginning with 14 offices around the state. By 1987, the program had grown to 23 offices and was working on 41,000 cases a year.

The state now has 36 district defender offices and handles nearly 90,000 cases annually, but Carroll said it’s not enough.

“Last year we did some work in Missouri and found that the public defense programs were drastically underfunded,” Carroll said. “Many of these young lawyers have huge law school debts to pay off, and some even take night jobs to help with that.”

Although he doesn’t hold a second job, with a salary of $36,000 a year, Porto certainly fits Carroll’s description.

“This isn’t a job you do to make money obviously,” Porto said. “I want to fight for people. That’s my favorite part of the job.”

Noble as it sounds, a 15 credit-hour semester at UMKC law still costs $7,310 for a Missouri resident. With a requirement upwards of 90 credits, the price tag of a law degree is close to $44,000.

“The defenders don’t make enough,” said Joan Sullivan, former supervisor of juvenile detention in Springfield, Ill. “They have to pay back those loans and eat.”

Sullivan had extensive experience with defenders in Springfield and Chicago.

“The public defenders I dealt with were really pretty good,” Sullivan said. “They are the most dedicated of attorneys out there, and you have to have a real love for the law to do that job.”

Carroll said public defenders need the right resources to do their job effectively.

“These defenders are not just placeholders to keep the judicial process moving,” Carroll said. “They need the time, tools and training to do the job right.”

Yet Porto said he often finds himself shaking his head when he tells people what he does for a living.

“I get asked on a daily basis whether I even have a law degree,” Porto said. “When people choose to hire a private attorney, they always tell us they hired a ‘real lawyer.’ I say that’s bullshit. The people in this office are real lawyers.”

Sullivan echoed Porto’s sentiments.

“It’s strange here in Missouri because I don’t think people have respect for that kind of work,” Sullivan said. “Defenders seem to be the low men on the totem pole, and that’s most certainly not fair.”

Porto said he thinks people underestimate the impact his work has on people.

“I don’t think people understand how important this job is and how important the work we do is,” Porto said. “I think it’d be something if this position could be as respected as the county prosecutor.”

Despite the fact that they find themselves on opposite sides of what Porto calls “the judicial coin,” he thinks defenders and prosecutors stand as equals.

“They are advocates for the state and we are advocates for people,” Porto said. “They have a badge and automatically they’re more respected.”

For Porto, however hard the work might be, the crux of the job remains the same.

“What we have to do a lot of the time is shine up that shit and make it look like a piece of gold,” Porto said. “My job is to make an argument for my client, so that’s what I do, every time.”