Gina Pruski

Gina Pruski is the Director of Training and Development for the State Public Defender’s Office (SPD) in Wisconsin. After obtaining both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she began her career with the SPD in 1992 serving first as a staff attorney in the Trial Division and then as Deputy Legal Counsel and Legislative Liaison for the agency.

Gina was the 2016-17 Chair of the National Alliance of Indigent Defense Educators (NAIDE), the trainers’ section of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association (NLADA) and is currently an executive officer of NAIDE. She is a member of the National Association for Public Defense (NAPD), serves on NAPD’s Education Committee, and helped create the Be Well Wednesday (BWW) virtual wellness program offered weekly to those who work in public defense.

From 2017-2019, Gina served as a trainer consultant for NLADA for the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice (S+J) Challenge whose goal is to safely reduce jail populations and eliminate racial inequities. In addition, on behalf of the U.S. State Department, Gina provided mentoring and technical assistance in the area of training and professional development to the Public Defender’s Office in Armenia. In March 2018, she conducted train-the-trainer programs for criminal justice professionals in Yerevan.

Gina is a member of the SPD’s Equity and Inclusion Advisory Board and has received extensive training in the area of racial justice, is one of the YWCA of Madison’s Race to Equity facilitators, and conducts unconscious bias and anti-racism training for public defender offices and other organizations and groups around the country and, in 2016, the Criminal Lawyers’ Association in Canada. Other subjects for which she conducts training at the national level include cultural humility, public defender wellness/sustainability, adult learning, holding difficult conversations, and public defense leadership.

Gina is a volunteer for the Wisconsin Lawyers Assistance Program (WisLAP) and served on the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Task Force on Wisconsin Lawyer Well-Being. She also recently served on the Board of Directors for Wisconsin Women in Government.

She is co-author of the WISCONSIN JUVENILE LAW HANDBOOK published by the State Bar of Wisconsin and is a certified trainer for the Youth Defender Advocacy Program developed by The Gault Center. Gina also volunteers as a judge for moot court and mock trial competitions around Wisconsin.

Gina is a 2011 recipient of the Women in the Law honor bestowed by the Wisconsin Law Journal.