Philly’s former chief public defender Keir Bradford-Grey is running for attorney general
Bradford-Grey is the third Democrat to announce a run for attorney general. If elected, she would be Pennsylvania’s first Black attorney general and first Black woman to hold statewide elected office.
Philadelphia’s former chief public defender Keir Bradford-Grey announced her candidacy Wednesday to become the state’s top prosecutor.
Bradford-Grey, 48, is the third candidate to enter the 2024 Democratic primary race for attorney general. If elected, she would be Pennsylvania’s first Black attorney general and first Black woman to hold a statewide row elected office.
Next year’s attorney general’s race is expected to be hotly contested. At least three other Democrats and six Republicans are rumored as candidates. The race is wide open, as Gov. Josh Shapiro resigned as attorney general after he was elected governor, and Michelle Henry, Shapiro’s deputy who was appointed to replace him, is not running. The seat is seen as a springboard to higher office; two of Pennsylvania’s last three governors first served as attorney general.
Bradford-Grey comes from a different angle than other candidates: She would be the first attorney general who spent most of her legal career as a public defender.
Public defenders are appointed by courts to represent people who cannot afford a private attorney. Pennsylvania is one of the only states that does not offer financial support to its public defenders’ offices. They are supported by county governments and are often underfunded and understaffed.
Bradford-Grey led the Defender’s Association of Philadelphia for five years before leaving to become partner at Montgomery McCracken Walker & Rhoads law firm in 2021.
As the city’s top defender, her office created a number of community-involved programs, including participatory defense hubs to support and educate people who were charged and their families as they go through the criminal justice process.
After decades of work as a public defender, Bradford-Grey said there’s “not any other role that’s more natural of a fit.”
“I understand the levers of where our system needs improvement,” she said.
She said her experience would allow her to transition easily to the Attorney General’s Office, given its duties to protect residents from violence, fraud, disenfranchisement, and discrimination.
“The skills you build [in the defender’s office] where you don’t have the most robust resources, you have to be so much more creative, you have to be a really good negotiator and problem solver at the basic level,” Bradford-Grey said. “To advance the office, I had to have real honest conversations and credibility with sectors of the community in order to get their buy-in.”
If elected attorney general, Bradford-Grey said, she would work to make Pennsylvania safer and more accessible for its residents.
Throughout her career as a public defender, Bradford-Grey has been on the front lines of racial justice issues, including in 2020, when she marched with a group of public defenders and racial justice supporters to protest the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Prior to leading the Philadelphia defender’s office, she led the Montgomery County defender’s office, where she was hired by then-Commissioner Shapiro. In that role, she said she created expungement clinics and youth courts.
Democrats Eugene DePasquale, a two-term Pennsylvania auditor general, and Joe Khan, a former prosecutor and Bucks County solicitor, have also announced their candidacies for attorney general. Among the more than half a dozen rumored candidates considering a run are Reps. Craig Williams (R., Delaware) and Jared Solomon (D., Philadelphia).