Assistant Public Defender

Across all employers in Rhode Island, the median wage for Lawyers — about 1,840 people — is $138,960. Public Defender pays a median base salary of $37,440 for this role, 73% below that figure — below the 10th percentile of local pay for the occupation.

Computed over the 31 of 35 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.

Median total compensation for this role at Public Defender is $37,440, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.

Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.

This role is reported in 6 jurisdictions. In Rhode Island, the median of $37,440 ranks #5 of 6. See Assistant Public Defender across all of Rhode Island →