Mentor Molly Heidorn

Molly M. Heidorn, Esq. is a full-time assistant public defender for Northampton County, where she represents clients in misdemeanor and felony matters.

Prior to joining the Public Defender’s Office, she served as a judicial law clerk to the Hon. Stephen G. Baratta, former President Judge, Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County.

Molly received a bachelor’s degree in Crime, Law and Justice, with a focus in Legal Studies, from the Pennsylvania State University in 2013. Molly graduated from New England Law | Boston in 2017. Molly’s law review article, An “Obvious Truth” – How Underfunded Public Defender Systems Violate Indigent Defendants’ Right to Counsel, was published in the New England Law Review in Volume 52.

Molly has spent the past ten years focused on criminal law and has tailored her studies and internships to indigent defense and public service. From 2010–2014, Molly interned with a part-time public defender. During law school, Molly worked for her school’s civil legal aid clinic, where she represented low-income clients in custody and divorce matters. She also worked as a practicing student attorney for Boston’s Committee for Public Counsel Services – Public Defender Division, where she won several motions to dismiss criminal charges. In addition to public defender experience, Molly worked with a criminal appellate attorney in Boston for a year. During this time, she researched and assisted in federal habeas corpus litigation. Molly also assisted the appellate attorney in doing work for the Innocence Project, during which she assisted in the preparation of an appellate brief that resulted in the exoneration of a man who wrongfully served over
thirty years in prison for crimes he did not commit.