As of Friday, the U.S. Senate has confirmed 82 of President Biden’s judicial nominees, which is an impressive number in itself. Biden has continued Barack Obama’s emphasis on adding diversity to the federal courts. For example, at the circuit courts of appeal level, one step below the Supreme Court, 15 out of 22 confirmed Biden justices have been women and 16 have been people of color.

But I’ve been fascinated by a special project Biden has taken on to place public defenders on the federal bench. This week, Biden added two more when Lara Montecalvo, the head of Rhode Island’s Public Defender’s Office, was added to the 1st Circuit and Sarah Merriam, a former Assistant Federal Defender in the District of Connecticut, was added to the 2nd Circuit. A third judge, Salvador Mendoza Jr. of California, who was confirmed to the 9th Circuit, has similar experience, having worked for the Legal Aid Society which focuses on providing assistance to low income individuals. A fourth judge, Arianna Freeman of Pennsylvania, saw her first confirmation fail this week due to unified Republicans opposition and the absence of a couple of Democratic senators. She should be confirmed soon to the 3rd Circuit. Freeman has served since 2009 as a lawyer at the Federal Community Defender Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Biden has now placed more public defenders on the federal appeals courts in two years than Obama did in eight. Montecalvo and Merriam are the 34th and 35th federal judges (at all levels) with public defender experience that Biden has seen confirmed. Freeman will be the thirty-sixth. Obviously, the most notable former public defender on the list is Ketanji Brown Jackson who is now serving on the U.S. Supreme Court.

So, while Biden has an impressive record of adding women and people of color to the federal bench, 35 of his 82 confirmations (and soon to be 36 of 83) have had public defender experience. Some others, like Mendoza Jr., have related experience. That demonstrates a real dedication and focus to this mission to change the collective outlook of the courts so that they’re more understanding of how the justice system grinds on the poor and indigent.

It’s unrealistic to think our federal courts are going to be perfect reflections of our society since getting a law degree from a (usually) prestigious university is still a basic prerequisite. It definitely helps to have gender, race and religious percentages that approximate our country as a whole. But it also helps to have some class equity. Most people can’t afford fancy lawyers and most trials involve both prosecutors and defense attorneys. Historically, far more prosecutors have become federal judges than defense attorneys, and public defenders have been a real rarity. If you want a judge to know how the law actually works for most Americans, it helps to have direct experience with what happens to people with incompetent or inadequate representation. Biden has make remarkable progress in a very short time in adding this needed perspective to the federal courts, and I think he really deserves a ton of credit.