Local bass tournament scene

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Trout Unlimited conducting wild trout survey

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; They could be paying back those student loans much faster.</p><p>But six young attorneys from the Office of the Public Defender of Luzerne County, speaking to the Times Leader earlier this month, agreed they couldn&#8217;t get this experience anywhere else.</p><p>&#8220;Sometimes it&#8217;s sad, but it makes you feel like your work means something when you&#8217;re working with someone who has no one else on their side,&#8221; said 29-year-old attorney Maura Armezzani.</p><p>Of the office&#8217;s 29 attorneys, 13 have joined the public defender&#8217;s team in the last five years, hired either by the county&#8217;s Chief Public Defender Steven Greenwald or his predecessor Al Flora. Greenwald says most of the remainder of attorneys has been with the office for nearly 20 years or more.</p><p>But that doesn&#8217;t mean new hires get sidelined.</p><p>Instead the young lawyers draw from not only their own educations and experience, but the office&#8217;s combined 200-plus years of legal experience as they quickly are assigned clients.</p><p>According to Matt Clemente, 26, the immediacy with which the office&#8217;s young attorneys find themselves thrust into casework is at odds with how some of his friends from law school entered the profession.</p><p>Colleagues who took jobs with the Philadelphia District Attorney&#8217;s office, he said, often shadow the more experienced attorneys for considerable amounts of time before taking on a small number cases of their own.</p><p>To the laughter of her colleagues, Jazamine Stallings joked about the worries she hears from her own law school friends working in private firms and larger offices.</p><p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll say, &#8216;I have to go to court today,&#8217; and I&#8217;m like, &#8216;Just once?&#8217;&#8221;</p><p>Stallings, 27, said the workload intimidated her at first, but having been thrown so immediately into the fray forced her to overcome those worries quickly.</p><p>For many of the young attorneys, like 26-year-old Steph Fernandes, the post becomes a first job after years of education.</p><p>&#8220;There were two openings and I thought maybe they&#8217;d be willing to take a chance on a blind girl from Ohio straight out of law school,&#8221; she said.</p><p>The office did take that chance, and in her time with the office Fernandes said she&#8217;s gained insight into her clients&#8217; lives that allows her to focus on the humanity of the individuals she encounters.</p><p>&#8220;I feel like a lot of our clients have always been on the short end of the stick of different institutions,&#8221; Fernandes said.</p><p>That&#8217;s precisely what motivated Nicole Thompson Lermitte, 32, to seek employment in Luzerne County.</p><p>A Chicago native, Lermitte said she was working in Philadelphia when the Kids for Cash scandal caught her attention. She applied to work in the county&#8217;s juvenile defender&#8217;s. She started in 2010 and has since moved to the adult side.</p><p>The young attorneys say it is ultimately the service to their clients that makes the job truly unique.</p><p>Armezzani said her clients nearly always make it clear she&#8217;s helping and will stop to thank her even if she simply guided them through entering a guilty plea.</p><p>According to Mary Prescott, 30, that accountability to and appreciation from clients makes the whole thing worth it.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s an honor to represent those who can&#8217;t protect themselves,&#8221; she said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Six young attorneys from the Luzerne County Office of the Public Defender pose for a group photo in an office conference room. Clockwise from the top left is Jazamine Stallings, Mary Prescott, Maura Armezzani, Steph Fernandes, Nicole Thompson Lermitte and Matt Clemente. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/web1_attorneys1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Six young attorneys from the Luzerne County Office of the Public Defender pose for a group photo in an office conference room. Clockwise from the top left is Jazamine Stallings, Mary Prescott, Maura Armezzani, Steph Fernandes, Nicole Thompson Lermitte and Matt Clemente. </caption0><photoCredit0>Submitted photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By James O&#8217;Malley</p><p>jomalley@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach James O&#8217;Malley at 570-991-6390 or on Twitter @TL_omalley.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Young Luzerne County public defenders gain valuable experience