Veteran lawyer Dick Goldinger might wear a medium golf shirt, but he sports an XXL-size personality. On that, just about everyone who walks the halls of the Butler County Courthouse agrees.

Case in point, courtesy of President Judge Thomas Doerr:

"When I was [district judge], Dick had a preliminary hearing in front of me. Dick is not very tall. ... In fact, Dick was as tall standing up as his client was sitting down.

"While Dick was cross-examining the prosecuting officer, his client kept interrupting him and telling him what question to ask next. Dick, who has many years of trial experience under his belt and who was doing a very good job without any assistance from his client, repeatedly told his client to be quiet. The client continued to interrupt Dick, and Dick continued to become more frustrated.

"Finally, Dick turned to his client and, much as you would correct a 5-year-old child, cracked him across the back of his head and yelled at him to sit there and be quiet so that he could do his job.

"The client, who was big enough to pick up Dick with one hand, then sat quietly like a scolded schoolboy and let Dick complete his cross-examination."

"Goldie," as he is called, has announced his retirement from the Butler County public defender's office, which provides free legal counsel to those who can't afford private attorneys. Mr. Goldinger, 65, has been reporting to work there for 30 years.

Though he will continue his private legal practice from his downtown Butler office, he said he intended to cut his work hours.

"What I'd like to be able to do is get up in the morning, get a cup of coffee, prop up the pillows in the bed and sit there drinking my coffee and nibbling on ginger snaps or chocolate chip cookies while I watch ESPN," he said during a recent interview.

His last day in the public defender's office, where he has spent the past 26 years as chief public defender, is Jan. 29.

He'll leave a big hole in that office, said Judge Timothy McCune, former district attorney, who, as the county's chief prosecutor, has faced Mr. Goldinger as a courtroom adversary for 10 years.

"He was a formidable opponent. He did a very good job in a very tough position. Being the public defender is an extremely important job in our criminal justice system," Judge McCune said.

In addition to his overall expertise as a lawyer, the judge said, Mr. Goldinger "has a way with juries. He is an excellent public speaker. He was very good at getting his point across to lay people who make up juries."

He has had much practice, having litigated before thousands of juries.

Mr. Goldinger estimated that, until the past year or two, he'd had his fingerprints on between 1,500 and 2,000 cases a year. "I'd have a case load that never got below 200. I'd get rid of 15 clients then pick another 15 to 25. It was constant. Never ending," he said. He acknowledged that he had slowed down in recent months, saving himself as heavy-hitter in "big criminal cases" and giving guidance to the office's five full-time assistant public defenders, one of whom is his daughter-in-law. Rebecca Lozzi is married to Richie Goldinger, a partner in his father's practice and a candidate for district attorney.

Mr. Goldinger refused a request by Butler County commissioners in 2002 to go full-time because it would have entailed closing his private office. He didn't want to give up his lucrative private practice. "I told them I'd give up my private practice when they paid me $1 less than the DA made," he said.

Mr. Goldinger earns $47,500 a year as a part-timer. His first assistant, Kevin Flaherty, earns $67,400. The district attorney's post, an elected position, the salary for which is set by the state, pays $134,293. The first assistant's position pays $72,000.

Mr. McCune said he hoped the position of chief public defender becomes a full-time one. "I think the nature of the office has changed. It's no longer a part-time job to defend the indigent criminals of Butler County," Judge McCune said.

Mr. Goldinger agrees and said he would make a motion at the county commissioners next salary board meeting Wednesday to make the position full time, to increase the salary and to give the post to Mr. Flaherty.

Though Mr. Goldinger seems a natural in the courtroom, his professional public speaking wasn't always before a judge and a jury.

The East Butler man, who lives in the house he grew up in, had a career as an elementary school teacher in the Butler Area School District. He mostly taught sixth grade at Clearfield Elementary School.

Though he enjoyed the job, he said, the pay wasn't high enough to support his wife and the three sons the couple would raise.

So he went to night school at Duquesne University for four years while he taught during the day and then, in February 1977, after passing the bar exam a few months before, he took his first job as assistant public defender. He rose to the top post in 1985 after his mentor, Chief Public Defender Mike Mamula, died of cancer.

Mr. Goldinger said it was life experience as much as job experience and education that has made him the excellent attorney his colleagues say he is.

"I understand things. I understand people," he said.

One of three children of the late Ralph and Marie Goldinger, he grew up in East Butler, where most people worked in the mill, as did his father.

"I think I always wanted to be an attorney. I remember thinking about it when I was kid. But that amount of education was just out of the question. Too expensive," he said.

He was among the first in town to go to college after his 1959 graduation from Butler Area High School. But his stint at Grove City College didn't last long.

"I ran out of money and interest," he said. He joined the Air Force for four years, and was stationed in Alaska, where he was assigned to "listen to the Russians."

He worked briefly on a construction crew after his discharge in 1965, then enrolled at Slippery Rock College in 1966 when he married his former wife, Carole. He got a bachelor's degree in education in 1969, began teaching and, at the same time, began studying for his master's degree, which he earned in 1971 from Slippery Rock.

Frustrated by a feeling of being underpaid, he decided to try his hand at his first aspiration: the law. He earned his degree in 1976.

His casework has run the gamut. Mr. Goldinger has written wills, filed divorces, sued in civil court and defended people accused of crimes.

It was in criminal court where he found his passion. In fact, Mr. Goldinger likes to call himself "a true believer."

"I know people are going to call me a liberal here, and I'm not a liberal, just a true constructionist. But I genuinely believe that the public defender's office and criminal defense attorneys in general are the last buffer between a society that believes a person who is charged with a crime is guilty of a crime and that the most severe punishment that we can possibly give should be given.

"We are the last protectors of those people's rights.