UTAH COUNTY — Love and justice may be blind, but that doesn’t mean romance can’t find its way into the legal system.

Chief Counsel Anthony Howell and his wife, Shawn Howell, work as attorneys for the Utah County Public Defender Association.

“We enjoy working for the county, and we like being public servants,” Anthony Howell said. “We’re never going to get rich doing this, but it seems to fit our lifestyle.”

Shawn Howell said she was in private practice for only six weeks before becoming a public defender.

“I had a hard time asking people for money when they were having a life crisis,” Shawn Howell said. “Now I feel like I’m actually able to focus on practicing the law, instead of also having to worry about being a business person.”

Although they’re married and work at the same office, the Howells said they don’t team up on cases.

“We don’t work together for a couple of reasons,” Anthony Howell said. “For one, we’re assigned to practice in front of different judges, but also, it’s more of a marriage-saving measure.”

They sometimes talk to each other about cases — which they are permitted to do, since they both work at the same office.

“We just don’t work well together,” Shawn Howell said, while laughing. “We discovered that when I was in law school. … We have different styles and ways of doing things, and we just don’t mesh.”

It’s not as challenging to be married to another “professional arguer,” as might be thought.

“Shockingly, we argue very little,” Anthony Howell said. “Because we’re both attorneys, we’re generally able to zero in on the specific issue, so we don’t spend a lot of time milling around the problem.”

Shawn Howell said because they’ve been to law school, she believes it has helped them to speak the same language.

“Like right now, we’re in the throes of negotiating what kind of car we’re going to buy,” Shawn Howell said. “We need to get a new family car, and we both have opinions about what it should be — so the jury’s still out on who’s going to win this one, but we’re both able to express our very specific reasons about why we think one’s better than the other.”

Learning that language allowed her to also understand more clearly what her husband was actually saying.

“Before I went to law school, sometimes we’d have something come up, and Andy would be very specific about his apology,” she said and then laughed. “In my mind, all I was hearing was that he was sorry and that was great but since going to law school I’ve realized that there were some limits on his apologies.”

Anthony Howell said public defenders sometimes have a reputation of being overworked or lazy, but he said the office where he and his wife work has an excellent reputation.

“I think our clients generally appreciate the service we provide,” he said. “And along with the prosecutors and law enforcement officers in the valley, I believe we’re integral to making Utah County one of the greatest places to live.”

Shawn Howell said she handles different cases in different ways.

“Representing guilty people doesn’t bother me at all, because I feel that I’m protecting the Constitution, and so along with that, I would never misrepresent anything by standing up and saying they’re not guilty,” she said.

Her job is to protect the Constitutional rights of her clients, she said. Because of the opportunities and help she’s been given in her own life, Shawn Howell said she sees her job as a way to potentially help people who have made mistakes. That gives her the chance to plead for compassion for them, in hopes that they will decide to do something better with their lives.

“The cases that really stress me out are the ones where I think my client is innocent,” she said. “Those are the cases that make it hard for me to sleep at night.”

She often tells clients that it’s been nice working with them, but she hopes she never sees them again.

“We’re not paid by the case, so this is one of the few professions where repeat business is not necessarily encouraged,” Anthony Howell said jokingly.

Sometimes clients are found guilty and have to serve jail time. Each of their clients is an individual and respond accordingly to the case resolution.

“Most of my clients are really just interested in me sticking up for them,” he said. “Most of them don’t see my job as being as result-oriented as much as making sure they have an advocate.”