When Bryan Tyson first became head of the Georgia Public Defender Council in April 2015, he was “an unknown quantity to the public defender world,” according to Frank Strickland of Strickland Brockington Lewis, Tyson’s former employer. But over the course of his first year in charge of the agency, Tyson has won two unprecedented victories for the agency: $4 million in budget increases and a standard of pay parity to public defenders across the state, meaning they earn the same salaries as similarly-experienced prosecutors.
Throughout the year, Tyson worked closely with members of the state Legislature and the executive branch, namely Gov. Nathan Deal, who focused his efforts this year around criminal justice report, to bolster the budget of the public defender council.
