Hugh Rodham - Public Defender

Public Defender

Rodham moved to Miami, where he began to practice criminal law; from around 1980 he became a public defender in Dade County. Rodham married Maria Victoria Arias, a Cuban immigrant lawyer whom he met while she was interning at the public defender's office, in 1986; they lived in Coral Gables, Florida.

In 1989 the groundbreaking, much imitated Miami Drug Court was co-founded by State Attorney Janet Reno, Chief Judge Gerald Wetherington, and Public Defender Bennett Brummer. Seeking to combat the crack cocaine epidemic of the time, it sought to find nonviolent drug users and give addicts structured programs to overcome addiction, often in lieu of a jail sentence. Rodham became Assistant Public Defender in the court. In this work Rodham was praised by local officials for effective, tireless work for long hours at low wages; Rodham himself would later say, "Public Defenders are the last bastion for liberty ... we provide a strong defense for every citizen accused." Reno would later credit Rodham for making the Drug Court a success: "That drug court could never have been established without the cooperation of the public defender ... was a fellow by the name of Hugh Rodham, the assistant public defender. And we didn't know who Hugh Rodham was in those days, but one thing he did was get his clients in the back room, and every now and then you could hear him raise his voice and tell them to get with it and let's go. ... He was assiduous in protecting his clients' rights, but he was also extraordinarily helpful in making sure his clients understood that here was a real chance to solve their problems."

In 1993, Hugh Rodham and his brother Tony ignited a small controversy when they tried to solicit corporate donations for Clinton's inaugural parties; they dropped the effort after a public outcry. Once the Clintons entered the White House, Rodham became a sometime golfing buddy of the President and he and Maria often joined family get-togethers at Camp David. When Clinton was having trouble with his cabinet nominations, Rodham recommended Reno to the president for appointment as U.S. Attorney General.