Meet your Attorneys

Our Manatee office is currently seeking attorneys for Misdemeanor and Felony divisions.

Ms. Sanchez has dedicated over 20 years to the Office of the Public Defender forthe Twelfth Judicial Circuit and has been the Chief Assistant in Manatee County since 2013. She manages over 20 attorneys and 40 total employees and has defended all levels of criminal offenses from misdemeanors to capital homicides. She was on Law Review and graduated in the top 5% of her class from the University of Florida Frederic G. Levin College of Law in 2001. Prior to law, Ms. Sanchez was in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua.

Mrs. Clough is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and earned her undergraduate degree from Penn State University in 1998. She received her Juris Doctorate from Nova Southeastern University Shepard Broad College of Law in 2001, and she was admitted to the Florida Bar that same year. Mrs. Clough has spent the majority of the last two decades as an Assistant Public Defender throughout the state of Florida.

Rick Filkins is a graduate of UF law. He’s been practicing since 1987 is a former federal prosecutor (DC), former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee (DC) and former Senior Special Counsel at the New York Stock Exchange. He retired but came out of retirement to defend the indigent.

Mrs. Hunter is a Manatee County native. She graduated from Southeast High School in 1997 and double majored in Biology and History at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, earning her Bachelor of Science in 2001. Mrs. Hunter is a graduate of Stetson University College of Law and has been licensed in the State of Florida since 2005. She has devoted her legal career to the representation of the clients of the Office of the Public Defender. Currently, Mrs. Hunter is the lead attorney of the capital division, trying primarily homicides and capital sexual batteries.