More than six months ago, I wrote about a highly qualified but largely unknown candidate who had given up a secure career to undertake what looked like a quixotic campaign.

David Solet had spent 24 years as a prosecutor, most recently as chief of the Middlesex District Attorney’s Cold Case Homicide Unit. He had been named the 2025 Middlesex County Prosecutor of the Year. Then he resigned to challenge his longtime boss, District Attorney Marian Ryan.

On paper, Solet had almost everything a district attorney should have: experience prosecuting murder, domestic violence, child exploitation, organized crime and public corruption; leadership of both the Cold Case Homicide Unit and the Cyber Protection Unit; service as chief legal counsel to the state Secretary of Public Safety; and the perspective of an Army Reserve JAG officer who has represented both military defendants and victims of sexual assault. He is an honors graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School.

What he did not have was political visibility, a campaign organization, or anything approaching Ryan’s formidable financial resources. “David who?” was a not-unreasonable reaction.

Today, things have changed — and not just because the primary comes early this year….on September 1, a week before Labor Day.

Solet remains the underdog, but his campaign has grown into a serious county-wide challenge. He has visited all 54 Middlesex cities and towns. More than 25 law-enforcement and public-safety organizations (the people who work most closely with the D.A. to protect the public) have endorsed him.  Former prosecutors, attorneys who previously opposed him in court, victims’ relatives and other people familiar with his work are now speaking publicly on his behalf.

Former Middlesex assistant D.A. and former Massachusetts Lawyer of the Year Lisa McGovern has praised Solet as “smart, hard-working, attentive, personable, and above all, ethical.” Relatives of murder victims praise something even beyond his professional credentials: a prosecutor who listened to them, treated them compassionately and persisted after their cases had gone cold.

Solet’s campaign has also become financially real, although the disparity remains daunting. According to state campaign finance records, Ryan started the year with a war chest of $637,000, has spent about $145,000 and, as of June 30, had $766,000 on hand. As of July 22nd, Solet has raised nearly a quarter of a million dollars, has spent about $140,000 getting his campaign launched and now has about $100,000 on hand. The filing dates of these reports are three weeks apart, but what’s clear is that there is a huge funding gap. Solet is not dispirited however. He says, “We’ll just be smarter at getting the message out,” meaning new technology and social media. Not having financial parity, he insists, is “not a reason not to run.”

I have also watched Solet grow as a candidate. The earnest but initially politically inexperienced challenger I met months ago now projects the confidence of someone whose ideas are being heard and whose campaign is attracting volunteers, contributors and supporters.

He has done it through the distinctly unglamorous work of retail politics: town committee meetings, playgrounds, carnivals, Pride celebrations, firehouse breakfasts, endless telephone calls and the humbling ritual of collecting signatures on his own nomination papers. In a down-ballot contest for an office many residents do not even realize is elected, that retail work matters.

So does the case he is making.

Solet argues that a district attorney must base decisions on the facts and the law, not on political convenience. He has criticized Ryan for failing to devote sufficient resources to cold cases and for not acting sooner to support an extension of the statute of limitations for aggravated rape. Ryan disputes his characterization of the cold-case unit and has characterized his criticism as what she described to the Harvard Crimson as “negative campaigning.” Voters should hear both candidates. (When I originally wrote about Solet, I contacted Ryan’s office multiple times, but never received a response. More recent requests for comment have gone unanswered.)

Solet’s larger point is persuasive: A district attorney sets the office’s priorities, and the D.A.’s responsibility does not end with enforcing the law as it exists. When a law prevents justice, the district attorney should use the office’s public authority to press the Legislature for change.

Given that role, some voters may even ask whether that means Solet should be running for the Legislature instead. It does not. A district attorney sees where criminal laws fail in actual cases. Although the officeholder does not vote on legislation, the head of such an important public agency has both the standing and the obligation to use what Theodore Roosevelt termed the bully pulpit.

Some progressives, now undecided, may be uneasy about Solet’s extensive police-union support. But Solet’s broader record does not fit the caricature of a reflexively punitive “law-and-order” candidate. He has served as a military defense lawyer as well as an advocate for sexual-assault victims. He participated in the Boston Bar Association working group that strongly opposed restoring the death penalty. He supports diversion and rehabilitation where they are appropriate while insisting that repeat violent offenders must be prosecuted effectively. Prosecutors must be able to work closely with police while independently evaluating their conduct and the evidence they produce.

A credible justice system must be capable of both discernment and resolve.

As I heard from her at one of her campaign events, Ryan emphasizes her role in prevention, diversion and human services. Those are essential parts of public safety, and her status as Massachusetts’s only female district attorney deserves acknowledgment. But voters need not choose between compassion and accountability. The real question is which candidate can combine them most effectively while modernizing an office confronting cyber crime, sophisticated gun trafficking, digital evidence and hundreds of unsolved cases.

Solet speaks often about morale and retention inside the district attorney’s office. That may sound like inside baseball, but it directly affects the quality of justice. Assistant district attorneys will never earn what many could command in private practice, and district court prosecutors predictably leave after a few years. Solet is concerned at the turnover of the more experienced superior court prosecutors in Middlesex. While they may be paid more than those in some other counties, they are more likely to remain when they are treated with respect and reminded that their work has an important public purpose. An office that cannot retain talented prosecutors cannot consistently serve defendants, victims or the public well, be they in Lowell and Cambridge or Newton and Concord.

Another former long-term prosecutor told me she, too, left the office because of Marian Ryan. She said that in 2025 six or more experienced prosecutors left within a 12-week period, most because of “the culture” of “resentment and frustration.” A pattern of micromanagement of cases (how to charge, what witnesses to take to the grand jury, what bail to recommend, jail versus probation and more) devalues the judgment of highly experienced prosecutors, undercuts the professional development of younger prosecutors and ultimately affects the professionalism and effectiveness of the system designed to ensure justice and public safety. Ironically, this prosecutor told me, women prosecutors feel especially disrespected.

In a past Boston Globe interview about this longstanding turnover problem, Ryan simply said that “there will always be a certain level of attrition because these individuals have many attractive exit opportunities.” Still another longtime prosecutor who left the toxic work environment and happily took a lower-paying job (also in the public sector), said that Ryan “treats women, mostly moms, with disrespect. Even with women she has trained, she does everything she can do to put you down.” Male prosecutors are adversely affected too. The result, she says, is that the public ends up with prosecutors who are afraid to speak up and respectfully disagree with Ryan, leading to “politically charged decisions where you don’t get justice for all.”

Finally, to those Democrats who bristle at Solet’s having served as chief legal counsel to the secretary of public safety from 2015 to 2019 under Republican Governor Charlie Baker, I see that as a qualification, not a betrayal. Protecting the public, advising multiple government agencies and managing the legal responsibilities of government should not be partisan activities. Baker governed with unusually broad bipartisan support (around 70 percent favorability, consistently ranked one of the top two governors nationally). Public service under his administration does not make Solet any less a Democrat.

Marian Ryan has decades of experience, powerful allies and a commanding financial advantage. Challenging her is still an uphill undertaking. But incumbency should not become entitlement, particularly in an office that wields enormous power while receiving relatively little public scrutiny.

David Solet has progressed from an impressive résumé to a highly credible candidate with an organization, a constituency and a serious argument for change. He has earned more than a polite hearing. This is one case where the office and the public would benefit from this new generation of experienced leadership that our times require.

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