Young, ambitious and smart, 23-year-old Frederick* wanted to earn a degree in business and pursue a career in the music industry. But he had three giant hurdles: He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, he had Crohn’s disease and was self-medicating with an overuse of cannabis.

On a recent Saturday, about 40 LA County Public Defender lawyers, paralegals and support staff pored through countless boxes of court cases with a single mission: To help give people locked up as youths a chance to live a life outside state prison.

Upon receiving the Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s (APABA) Trailblazer-in-the Law Award, LA County Public Defender Ricardo García spoke of his pride at being the first Latino top attorney in the nation’s oldest and largest public defender’s office.

For the first time in the LA County Public Defender’s Office, two paralegals have been commended by the State Senate for their “exemplary record of contribution to the people of the State of California.”

High on methamphetamines, the man in his 50s exchanged heated words with his neighbors, then drove his car toward the couple. But that’s not where the client’s story began.