Fill Critical Defense Positions Faster
Access pre-vetted criminal defense professionals — public defenders, conflict counsel, investigators, mitigation specialists, and more. The only hiring platform built exclusively for the defense community.
Active Job Listings
Provider Organizations
California Regions
The Defense Hiring Crisis
Criminal defense organizations face unique staffing challenges that generic hiring platforms cannot solve.
High Turnover
Public defenders burn out fast. The emotional toll of high caseloads and systemic underfunding drives experienced attorneys to leave, creating constant recruitment cycles.
Caseload Crisis
Defense teams across California carry caseloads far exceeding American Bar Association recommendations, making it harder to attract and retain quality talent.
Talent Competition
Defense organizations compete for talent against prosecution offices with better pay, private firms with higher salaries, and a shrinking pipeline of mission-driven attorneys.
How It Works
From posting to placement in as few as 21 days.
Submit Your Hiring Needs
Tell us about your open positions, team culture, caseload types, and ideal candidate profile. Our defense-specific intake captures what generic job boards miss.
We Match You with Qualified Candidates
Our matching algorithm considers defense experience, caseload resilience scores, specialization fit, geographic preferences, and organizational culture alignment.
Review Pre-Screened Profiles
Access detailed candidate profiles with career assessment scores, verified credentials, defense-specific experience summaries, and salary expectations.
Make Your Hire
Schedule interviews, extend offers, and onboard your new team member. Average time from posting to offer acceptance: 21 days.
Built for Defense Hiring
Every feature is designed specifically for criminal defense organizations. No generic recruiter noise.
Defense-Specific Talent Pool
Access a curated pool of criminal defense professionals — public defenders, conflict counsel, investigators, mitigation specialists, and more. No generic candidates.
Resume Builder with Defense Templates
Candidates use our role-specific resume templates, so you receive standardized, defense-relevant profiles that make comparison and evaluation faster.
Salary Benchmarking Tools
Set competitive compensation with real salary data across 15+ defense roles, broken down by region, experience level, and organization type.
Career Assessment (TPB Framework)
Every candidate completes our 5-domain behavioral assessment covering Defense Identity, Caseload Resilience, Transition Readiness, Organizational Fit, and Career Trajectory.
Market Intelligence Dashboard
Track hiring trends, caseload crisis data, regional demand signals, and competitor activity to inform your recruitment strategy and timing.
Budget Crisis Tracking
Monitor funding cliffs, hiring freezes, and budget cuts across California counties. Identify displaced talent and opportunity windows before your competitors.
Plans for Every Defense Organization
Start free and scale as your hiring needs grow. No long-term contracts required.
Free
Get started with basic job posting visibility.
- Post jobs on our board
- Basic listing visibility
- Organization profile page
- Access to candidate applications
Professional
Everything you need to hire defense talent faster.
- Featured job listings
- Candidate matching algorithm
- Salary benchmarking data
- Priority support
- Candidate assessment scores
- Regional market reports
Enterprise
For large offices with ongoing hiring needs.
- Dedicated account manager
- Team readiness assessments
- Custom employer branding
- API access
- Bulk posting discounts
- Onboarding support
What Defense Leaders Say
Hear from managing attorneys, chief defenders, and HR directors who use our platform.
“We filled three staff attorney positions in under a month. The candidates were already pre-screened for defense experience, which saved us weeks of review time.”
Maria Gonzalez
Managing Attorney, Bay Area Public Defender Office
“The salary benchmarking data alone justified the subscription. We restructured our compensation to be competitive and immediately saw better candidate quality.”
David Chen
Chief Public Defender, Central Valley Defense Consortium
“As an HR director, I appreciate that every candidate comes with a behavioral assessment. It gives our hiring committees real data to work with, not just resumes.”
Sarah Okafor
HR Director, Southern California Legal Aid
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about hiring through Defense Talent Exchange.
We serve public defender offices, alternate public defender offices, conflict panel administrators, legal aid organizations with criminal defense units, and private firms providing assigned counsel services. Our platform is built exclusively for the criminal defense ecosystem.
Every candidate completes a comprehensive career assessment based on our 5-domain Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework, covering Defense Identity, Caseload Resilience, Transition Readiness, Organizational Fit, and Career Trajectory. We verify bar status, experience levels, and specializations before matching.
Our average placement time is 21 days from posting to offer acceptance. For organizations using our Professional or Enterprise tiers with active candidate matching, placements can happen in as few as 10-14 days depending on the role and region.
Absolutely. We specialize in the full defense team — mitigation specialists, defense investigators, paralegals, social workers, sentencing advocates, reentry coordinators, and administrative staff. In fact, non-attorney defense roles are among our fastest-growing categories.
We currently cover 9 California regions including Los Angeles County, San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, Central Valley, Inland Empire, Orange County, Central Coast, and Northern California. We are actively expanding to additional states.
Ready to Build Your Defense Team?
Join 40+ defense organizations across California already using Defense Talent Exchange to find, evaluate, and hire the professionals their communities need.