Devoted career to indigents

Among the 133 ISBA members who will be recognized as Senior Counsellors next month is a lawyer who has devoted most of his career to representation of indigent and underserved defendants.

Marshall J. Hartman of Chicago recently received the 2008 Champion of Indigent Defense Award from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, an organization that was founded the year he graduated from law school.

“There is no one more deserving of this award,” said Bill Wolf, vice chair of the NACDL Indigent Defense Committee at the 50th anniversary meeting in Milwaukee.

“Many of the things that we believe are important - training for public defenders, caseload standards and advocacy standards – are things Marshall Hartman pushed for early on in the movement for effective indigent defense,” he added.

A 1957 graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, Hartman became a public defender in Chicago in 1963. He represented clients in juvenile matters, misdemeanors and felonies, death penalty cases, and appellate and post-conviction proceedings.

He was national director of defender services for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, and he headed the Capital Litigation Division of the Illinois State Appellate Defender Office from 1991 to 2003.

He also has evaluated numerous public defender offices and provided technical assistance to raise their standards of representation.