Deputy Public Defender Family
Career series with 2 positions across 1 levels
Deputy Public Defender is a career-ladder family in New Jersey civil service, with 2 titles spanning 1 level.
The family is anchored by Deputy Public Defender 2. Pay across the family spans $83,210 to $187,691, around the 96th percentile of all civil service job families by top pay. State payroll records show 124 people across the family's titles, most concentrated at Office of the Public Defender.
Deputy Public Defender commonly advances into Deputy Registrar of Vital Statistics/Keyboarding Clerk and Public Safety Telecommunicator/Clerk.
Positions in This Family
- Deputy Public Defender 2 (30767) $83,210 - $116,477/year
- DEPUTY PUBLIC DEFENDER 2 (61447) $126,854 - $187,691/year
What the Deputy Public Defender family covers
Deputy Public Defender groups 2 related title codes in the New Jersey civil service classification plan. Every title in it is a state title, so the employer is a state department, commission or authority rather than a county or municipality.
Legal titles in New Jersey split into two groups that look similar and are not. Deputy attorneys general, public defenders and public advocates are unclassified: they are appointed, not examined, and their pay is negotiated inside a schedule rather than earned by stepping through it. Hearing officers, appeals examiners and paralegal support titles are ordinary classified positions filled the usual way. Both groups cluster in Law and Public Safety, the Office of Administrative Law and the agencies that run their own hearings, so the work is closer to administrative adjudication than to courtroom practice.
The ladder, ordered by pay
Sorted by pay instead of by title number, the Deputy Public Defender family stacks up as follows. Here the numbering happens to agree with the pay order, which is not guaranteed elsewhere in New Jersey's plan.
- Deputy Public Defender 2 — $126,854 to $187,691 (a doctoral degree and 3 years of experience)
- Deputy Public Defender 2 — $83,210 to $116,477 (frozen schedule) (3 years of experience)
The distance from the bottom of Deputy Public Defender 2 to the top of Deputy Public Defender 2 is $104,481, an increase of about 126% over the entry minimum. 1 of the 2 titles in the family sits on a schedule whose rates are frozen, so the published figure there is the schedule of record rather than a guide to actual pay.
What each title does
The specifications themselves are the clearest guide to what separates these titles. Here is how each one opens.
- Deputy Public Defender 2: Assists the Deputy Public Defender, Office of the Public Defender, Department of Public Advocate, in the performance of all professional duties…
Getting in: the stated requirements
Across the 2 titles we have parsed, the education requirements read as a doctoral degree on 1 of them. Experience requirements sit at 3 years wherever they are stated.
On how the jobs are filled: 2 are unclassified, which means appointment at the employer's discretion and salary set individually.
Who actually employs these titles
State payroll records show 124 people working under 2 of this family's titles, spread across 1 agency. Office of the Public Defender alone accounts for about 100% of them.
- Office of the Public Defender — 124 employees
Median actual pay varies across the family, from $169,588 for Deputy Public Defender 2 up to $169,588 for Deputy Public Defender 2. Those are medians of what people are really paid, not schedule minimums and maximums.
State payroll only, deduplicated by payroll title; local employers file separately, so a family with local codes looks smaller here than it is. How this is counted.
How the pay is set
The family is split across 2 salary schedules (M and M-Represented), so two titles that look adjacent can be paid from different tables with different step structures. Bargaining is handled by IBEW. Union contracts and rights are collected here.
Where these jobs exist
These are state titles, hired by New Jersey departments, commissions and boards through the Civil Service Commission's announcement and eligible list process rather than by an ordinary job posting. How state hiring works, and which agencies employ what.
Related titles elsewhere in the plan
Nearby in the plan, ranked by how distinctive the shared terms are rather than by how many words happen to match.
- Public Defender ($122,932 to $172,108, state jurisdiction)
- Assistant Public Defender ($111,503 to $156,118, state jurisdiction)
- Investigator 1 Public Defender ($69,668 to $101,951, state jurisdiction) — in the Investigator family
- Assistant Deputy Public Defender 1 ($79,844 to $117,228, state jurisdiction) — in the Assistant Deputy Public Defender family
- Investigator Aide, Public Defender ($46,727 to $67,528, state jurisdiction)
- Chief Investigator Public Defender ($68,455 to $95,846, state jurisdiction) — in the Chief family
Common questions about Deputy Public Defender jobs
How many Deputy Public Defender titles are there in New Jersey civil service?
The Deputy Public Defender family holds 2 title codes. Each code is a separate classification with its own published specification, requirements and salary treatment.
What does a Deputy Public Defender earn in New Jersey?
Published salary data for this family runs from $83,210 at the bottom of Deputy Public Defender 2 to $187,691 at the top of Deputy Public Defender 2. Those are schedule figures. Where the title appears on the state payroll, actual median pay is listed on the page above.
Do you need to take an exam to become a Deputy Public Defender?
Mostly no. 2 of the 2 titles here are unclassified, so appointment is at the employer's discretion rather than from an eligible list, and salary is set individually rather than by a published step. That also makes cross-agency salary comparison less reliable for these titles.
What qualifications does a Deputy Public Defender need?
The most common education requirement in this family is a doctoral degree, named on 1 of the 2 titles. Stated experience ranges from 3 years depending on the rung. Read the individual specification for the exact wording, including any experience substitution.
Which agencies employ Deputy Public Defender staff?
State payroll records show 124 people in this family across 1 agency, with Office of the Public Defender the largest at 124. Local government employers are not covered by that extract.