HUFFINGTON
10.28.12
LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
ternoons representing 17 clients
in a row before the same judge.
“It becomes assembly-line justice,” he says. “It’s like a McDonald’s drive-through — just moving the bodies alon g.”
Last year, after being singled
out by a congressional legislature report for the “shocking
deterioration” of its quality of
work, Olexa’s office rebelled,
turning down hundreds of cases
and demanding more resources
from the county. And as John
writes, other public defender offices are doing the same, suing
states and counties that underfund them and then saddle the
public defenders with mountainous caseloads that threaten clients’ constitutional rights.
Elsewhere in the issue, Katherine Bindley takes us inside a
very different world — that of
lifestyle concierges, a growing
industry encompassing everything from pregnancy planners
to personal grocery shoppers for
patients who have just had plastic surgery and don’t yet want to
be seen in public. It’s a story of
domestic outsourcing — that is,
outsourcing of tasks “once spe-
cific to the hotel industry.”
The value, for many who avail
themselves of these services, is
that concierges not only follow
orders but will also take the lead
— and in some cases make key life
decisions their clients don’t have time
to make. As Carrie
His
Starner Keenan, a
clients are
concierge who coormostly young
dinates home conand mostly
tracting projects,
broke. Unable
puts it, “these are
to post bail,
busy people and they
many of them
don’t have time to get
sit in jail,
things handled.”
waiting for
One of those busy
their court
people is Amanda
date.”
Jones, a San Francisco real estate agent
who works seven days a week,
and whose constellation of concierges includes a dog walker,
closet organizer, personal stylist
and work-related personal
assistant. Her mantra?
“It takes a village.”
ARIANNA