Women In... Episode 44: Josh Hilgart - A day in the life of a public defender

Josh Hilgart was raised in a Kalamazoo household rich in politics, humor, art, history and music—and with the ethos that helping others was an assumed function of life.

After graduating with a BA from Shimer College, Josh took up political advocacy in
Washinton, DC, working on electoral campaigns, voting rights, civil rights, LGTBQ+
rights, constitutional liberties, evaluation of judicial appointments, and environmental justice initiatives.

Among other things, Josh held major roles in creating the Election Protection program, building the nation’s first online polling place locator, lobbying the Senate on judicial appointments, and providing media training to international climate negotiators.

Josh returned to Michigan with his wife, Heather, after a dozen years in Washington to earn his Juris Doctorate from Michigan State University College of Law and to be of service to his hometown of Kalamazoo. 

Josh served as a law clerk for Judge Alexandar Lipsey in Michigan’s 9 th Circuit Court out of Law School and soon after took a job at Legal Aid of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo. Working directly in service of those facing abject poverty turned out to be transformative.

In 2018, the County of Kalamazoo adopted a plan to use new state money to hire a
non-profit to handle all criminal charges against indigent defendants. Well aware of how the criminal system functioned to knock many of his clients off track, Josh saw an opportunity for a non-profit that could provide not only legal representation, but also organized community care from existing service providers. It would be a holistic public defender with the services integrated into the legal defense, rather than an ancillary program.

Josh organized experts in criminal defense, mental health, community advocacy, and organizational development to help create a framework and proposal to accomplish the task. He recruited a diverse Board of Directors that was over two thirds female and two thirds BIPOC. Kalamazoo County agreed to contract with Kalamazoo Defender by late 2018; funding began in February of 2019, with Josh at the helm as Executive Director. By July, 2019, Kalamazoo Defender was taking criminal cases at a rate of 5,000 per year.

Since that time, Kalamazoo Defender has become the gold standard of indigent
defense in Michigan and its budget and staff have more than doubled. It is drawing national attention as the only public defender that systematically incorporates service providers into its legal representation, including having other organizations integrated into its very office space and operating as a coordinated hub. Each year, Kalamazoo Defender achieves dismissals on around 2,500 individual charges, often by highlighting clients’ circumstances and the services in which they are already engaging.