Soros Justice Fellowships

Southern Center for Human Rights

A grant to develop the Southern Public Defender Training Center, which will train public defenders across the southeastern United States to represent indigent defendants in a more responsive and effective way. The project aims to promote a client-centered culture of public defense across the South.

Rapping is the Chief of Training for the Orleans Public Defenders and has been instrumental in the rebuilding of that office in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Before joining the Orleans Public Defenders, he was the first training director for the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council (GPDSC). In that capacity he developed the GPDSC Honors Program, designed to recruit young public defenders to offices throughout the state and to provide them with the training and support needed to help transform indigent defense representation. Prior to that, he was the training director for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. He has been a public defender for the last eleven years. Rapping was an adjunct professor of trial advocacy at Georgetown University and serves as a visiting professor with Harvard's Trial Advocacy Workshop. He has presented at many conferences, including the National Legal Aid and Defender Association Annual Conference and the Arizona Public Defender Association Annual Conference. Rapping received a JD from the George Washington University School of Law, an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a BA from the University of Chicago.

Atlanta, GA |  1 Year |