Sad Day

I work for an attorney in a small city. He has been voted the Best Lawyer for four years in a row, quite an accomplishment because for a small city we have a lot of attorneys. I have worked for him for six years now as a legal assistant. Since it is only a single lawyer practice I only work part time. My mom got me the job since she is his No. 1 paralegal and she needed some extra help. My boss has been an attorney for over thirty years now.  My favorite part of my job is that we are Public Defenders for another small city in our county. It is the only criminal law we do anymore.  It's exciting and fun to be able to help the people who need it. It can be a huge pain in the ass. We get calls from the county jail on a regular basis and they can be very annoying. I would say that the best part are the Thank You cards from the people that genuinely needed help and appreciated that someone cared about them. Recently, because of budget cuts in the county, it has gotten a lot harder to be a Public Defender. We make almost twice as much in the daily practice then we get paid by the state for defending. And since the cuts, they are trying to lump too much together so that my boss has to go to court twice a week instead of once a month. It has been hell to try to keep up on the daily practice and going to court every other day. So yesterday, after we got three new appointments from the court, my boss decided to quit being a Public Defender. And he has also decided that he is retiring at the end of the year. SAD!!!!! First take away my favorite part of my job then, take the job away all together at the end of the year. I'm not really worried about finding a new job. I will be fine. But the Defendants? I just don't know if they will get the same attention form another attorney.