REDUCING BIAS IN HIRING PRACTICES

I’ve read that the Roman author Juvenal famously wrote “Fronti nulla fides” which (I’m told) when translated means, “Never have faith in the front.” Over time, this saying evolved to become one of the world’s more well-known idioms, “Don’t’ judge a book by its cover.” Whatever the saying, forming an opinion on something or someone based on their appearance is a dangerous practice. Biases we don’t even know we have (e.g., gender, name, accent, background, where one is from) influence our decision-making processes.

I had been the Public Defender for only a few years when John Halstead came to interview for a job seeking a position as an assistant public defender. I didn’t know John, but his resume indicated that for the prior dozen years or so he had been a managing attorney for a public defender office in Kentucky. This interview was promising. Experienced public defenders are hard to find.

During the interview, I learned that John had married a Knoxville girl and had decided that it made more sense for him to move here than for her to relocate to the rural Kentucky community where John was living. Unfortunately, my hopes were quickly dashed as I interviewed John. I don’t know what influenced me, but very quickly I decided John wasn’t the dynamic, persuasive trial lawyer I was looking for. I decided I wouldn’t offer him a job.

Only a couple of years into my new position, I hadn’t yet developed a graceful exit for these kinds of situations. As I tried to figure out how to tell John, “Thanks, but no thanks” in a way that didn’t hurt his feelings, I latched on to the fact that all I had was an entry-level position and John had a dozen years of experience. I told him it just wouldn’t be fair to insult an experienced guy like him with an entry-level salary offer. But John told me he wouldn’t see that as an insult. I remember him telling me all he ever wanted to be was a public defender. He made it clear if offered, he would accept an entry-level position. I quickly switched to game plan B and told him I’d think about it and get back to him. I’m pretty sure John saw through my BS.

John had only been gone a few minutes when my secretary buzzed me and told me I had a call. The woman on the other end, Alison Connolly, was the head Public Defender for the state of Kentucky. She explained to me that she understood I had just interviewed John Halstead. She acknowledged not knowing me and made it clear it wasn’t her intention to insult me, but she said, “I know exactly what you’re thinking, and you’re dead wrong!” She proceeded to tell me stories of impossibly difficult cases John had successfully handled in Kentucky. She told me that he was a brilliant strategist and a highly effective trial lawyer. This information, while totally inconsistent with my impression of John, was coming from the director of the state system. She wasn’t some local office PD like me, she ran the entire Kentucky Public Defender system. I was impressed by her taking the time to call me and I did what anyone would have done in my position. I hung up and called John and offered him a job. The decision to hire John Halstead at the CLO was one of the best decisions I ever made during my tenure. John was even better than she said he was.

In the early PD days, we were critically short-staffed. When a high-profile case came along (usually a murder case), an overextended APD just didn’t have the capacity to take it on. I decided that I would handle those cases. John came to me and told me that he had some experience in those kinds of cases and would be willing to work with me on them. I took him up on that offer and over the next couple of decades I guess we worked on hundreds of cases together (John remembers them by name and fact pattern).

I can confirm that everything Alison told me about John was true and some. He’s brilliant, dedicated, disciplined, relentless, fearless, hilarious, kind, and empathic. I’ve hired a number of great attorneys in my day, but none better than John Halstead.

In those early years, before anyone knew John, Ken Irvine was in private practice. Ken agreed to work with John and I on a death penalty case we were handling. After a few months of working with us, Ken - very impressed with John - said to me, “he’s the best-kept secret in Knoxville.” Ken was right.

Biases that I possess - that I don’t even know I possess - nearly caused me to make the worst hiring decision of my Public Defender tenure. Over time, John Halstead became the living breathing testament to the frailties of our hiring practices at the CLO. Slowly but surely, we implemented more “best practices” to reduce the impact of our biases in our hiring practices. We took the time to write better job descriptions. We selected candidates for face-to-face interviews after utilizing blind recruiting techniques. We involved other colleagues in the hiring process, and while we didn’t “standardize” our interview questions, we came close.

This July, John retires from the CLO. His work on behalf of his clients was inspirational. His dedication and relentless and effective lawyering as an Assistant Public Defender should serve as the benchmark, we all strive to maintain. Thank God for Alison Connelly. She made sure I didn’t let the biggest catch of my PD career get away.