by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
After years of working for an organization with a mission of helping others, Lois Ragsdale is going to help herself. It’s not as selfish as it sounds. She’s simply adjusting her career path.
“I miss being in court,” she admitted. “I miss being in trial.”
Next month, Ragsdale will leave the bureaucratic trappings as Legal Aid’s litigation director in favor of the fast-paced Public Defender’s Office, where she’ll start in the felony division.
“In the civil arena, which is what Legal Aid is, you end up with a lot of interesting cases and interesting issues from fair housing to domestic violence to fair lending. They’re all great issues with great clients and causes to advance. And in reality, it is a good thing that most of those cases settle favorably for our clients,” explained Ragsdale.
And the bad thing . . . “is you don’t go to court.”
As Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s litigation director for the last six years, Ragsdale supervised the agency’s dozen or so senior attorneys and coordinated Legal Aid’s housing/consumer, family law and public benefits substantive areas.
“Juggling,” as Ragsdale lightheartedly puts it.
It’s a rewarding job, she maintains, but it lacks the element of legal high drama only the courtroom can bring. While she makes the selfish choice for self-fulfillment, she’s really only shifting from one altruistic agency to another.
It’s been six years since Ragsdale argued a case before a jury. Six years since she felt the uneasy anticipation during deliberation. Six years since a victory. Six years since a defeat. Six years since she rubbed elbows with some of the finest trial lawyers in Jacksonville. And she misses it.
“I think most people who do jury trials do it because they love it,” she said.
Ragsdale worked for the Public Defender’s Office in the mid-1990s working misdemeanor and felony cases before transferring to Legal Aid. Prior to that, she practiced law in Virginia and Louisiana, where she received her law degree from Tulane University in New Orleans.