Jonathan Rapping

Jonathan A. Rapping is an American criminal defense attorney, founder and president of Gideon's Promise, professor of law at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School, and visiting professor of law at Harvard Law School. Rapping received the MacArthur "Genius" Award in 2014.

Rapping regularly writes about issues related to criminal defense and the criminal justice system. He is a contributor for The Nation, TalkPoverty.org, the National Association For Public Defense, and The Huffington Post. He also maintains a blog called Fulfilling the Promise: Insights to Forging a Path to Meaningful Justice Reform.

Early life, family and education Rapping grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At a young age, Rapping went to demonstrations and protests with his mother, Elayne Rapping, a community organizer, activist and professor in Pittsburgh. Rapping's mother was particularly involved in the anti-war and women's movements. The experience of working with his activist mother taught Rapping about social justice, and trying to change things in the world that aren't fair or right. After high school, Rapping attended the University of Chicago where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics cum laude.

Legal career

Public defender After law school, Rapping worked as a staff attorney for The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (1995–2004), where he served his final three years as training director. From 2004-2006, Rapping was the training director for the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council.

Since its founding, the organization has grown from a single training program for sixteen attorneys in two offices in Georgia and Louisiana, to a multi-tiered enterprise with over 300 participants in more than 35 offices across 15 mostly Southern states. An initial three-year "Core" program for new public defenders has since expanded into a comprehensive model that includes programs for graduates of the initial Core program as they continue their development, public defender leaders, trainers and supervisors, and law students. Further, the organization is unique in that it intervenes at the trial stage, rather than after conviction, where challenges to criminal injustice often take place. the Southern Center for Human Rights' 2013 Gideon's Promise Award, The National Association of Sentencing Advocates and Mitigation Specialists 2013 Sentencing Project Award, and the American College of Trail Lawyers' 2011 Emil Gumpert Award.

In 2014, Rapping became the Director of Strategic Planning and Organizational Development for the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. In 2014, Rapping earned a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Fellow."

Law professor Since 2007, Rapping has also been an associate professor at Atlanta's John Marshall Law School. In 2009, Rapping was selected as one of Harvard Law School's Wasserstein Public Interest Fellows in recognition of his contribution to the public interest legal arena.