According to his college guidance counselor, John Cashion didn’t fit the Northeastern law profile. “I went to Holy Cross and then spent a year in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps,” recalls John. His counselor thought the school was too progressive, but John was drawn to its public interest mission and found a perfect fit.

Through a co-op with the Committee for Public Counsel Services, John became interested in criminal defense work. And, through the NUSL-Alaska co-op pipeline, John, a New England native, found a new home state.,“The long winters in Alaska appeal to me,” says John, who served as a public defender for 15 years. “I’m an avid skier and I love winter sports.”

John and his wife spent nine years living in Bethel, where he was assigned to the local PD’s office. “Bethel is the bush,” he explains. “The aesthetics aren’t great. It’s impoverished. But the work is critical and we [wife and two children, born in Bethel] were able to hack it.” Though he found public defense work fulfilling, John decided to transition to private practice for a variety of reasons, including a desire to get back into the courtroom. “I felt like I had seen it all, and as I moved up into supervisory positions, I had fewer opportunities to try cases,” he says. “Now, I have the best of all worlds: defending clients who need solid representation and controlling my own destiny.”