Meet the Public Defender's Office

Jacob Sommer

Jacob Sommer, Esq.

Public Defender

Churchill County’s Public Defender, Jacob Sommer, Esq., has been a Nevada licensed attorney since 2007. 

Previous to joining the county in 2020, he practiced in his private firm representing clients for civil and criminal matters. He has extensive criminal defense experience for felony cases with penalties of lifetime imprisonment in addition to simple misdemeanor cases. Since 2012, he has been under contract to provide public defender services for Churchill County.

Sommer clerked for the Honorable David Huff in the Third Judicial District Court in Fallon for a year in the mid-2000s where he conducted legal research and drafted bench memorandums for review and evaluation while serving as courtroom bailiff.


He also has experience working for the Office of Federal Defender in Las Vegas where he assisted with in-depth, complicated legal research and writing appellate briefs to the Nevada Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.

He attended the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on full scholarship and graduated in 2006 with honors in clinical representation of juvenile defendants and legal writing while serving on the Dean’s Honor List.

Wright Noel

Wright Noel, Esq.

Deputy Public Defender

Deputy Public Defender Wright Noel joined the Public Defender’s Office in 2020. 

Also a Nevada licensed attorney, he clerked for Judge Thomas Stockard at the Tenth Judicial Court in Fallon for a year after moving to Churchill County following his graduation from Brigham Young University Law School in 2019. 

His undergraduate work was completed at Southern Virginia University in 2016.

Frank DeBraga

Frank deBraga

Legal Secretary


Born and raised on his family's farm here in Fallon, Frank played football at Churchill County High before attending college at Colorado Mesa University on a football scholarship. There he earned a degree in criminal justice and interned with the Colorado State Public Defender's Office.

Upon returning to Nevada, he earned a master's degree in criminal justice from the University of Nevada, Reno where he also worked as a teaching assistant.