As the current Chief Counsel of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), Anthony Benedetti has always been “willing to fight the good fight for those unable to fight for themselves,” as remarked by NACDL’s Senior Advisor for Special Projects, Angelyn Frazer-Giles.

Born and raised in West Roxbury, MA, he graduated from Boston Latin School in 1983. He then studied law in Boston College before going on to Suffolk University Law School, graduating cum laude in 1993. With prior experience as an audit specialist in the CPCS Audit and Oversight Unit and a Fiscal and Policy Analyst for the House Committee on Ways and Means, he continued his career in the public sector as a public defender trial lawyer in the CPCS Brockton office, where he represented hundreds of clients in the District and Superior courts. He later advanced to become the CPCS General Counsel, representing the agency on budget and legislative issues before ultimately succeeding Bill Leahy as Chief Counsel of CPCS.

As Chief Counsel, he has recently received the NACDL 2017 Champion of State Criminal Justice Reform Award for his years of effective policy advocacy such as abolishing juvenile life without parole in Massachusetts, reclassifying certain low level misdemeanors to civil offenses, reducing of certain minimum mandatory sentences, and pushing to keep the death penalty out of Massachusetts.

It is with the belief that no matter one’s background or wealth, one should always be entitled to the same zealous representation, that Benedetti has continued to dedicate his life to public service.