Theodora Gaitas is a public defender in the Office of the Minnesota State Public Defender. She handles direct appeals to the Minnesota Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, and post-conviction matters in both the district courts and the appellate courts. In addition to representing clients, Gaitas supervises the State Public Defender’s pro bono program, pairing private lawyers with criminal appeals.

Since graduating from law school in 1994, Gaitas has clerked at the Minnesota Court of Appeals, and has practiced criminal law at both the trial and appellate levels in the Philadelphia area and in Minnesota. She has taught appellate practice at William Mitchell College of Law and has participated in the criminal appeals clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School. Gaitas served as a member of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Advisory Committee for the Minnesota Rules of Criminal Procedure from 2001 to 2007.