Jeff Adachi, crusader behind Prop. B pension plan

He defends accused murderers and other hard-core criminals for a living, frequently spars with City Hall officials, sports a dragon tattoo on his arm and has a drawing of Malcolm X and a Rage Against the Machine concert poster hanging in his office.

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi also owns a $1.5 million dollar home in the city's tony and conservative St. Francis Wood neighborhood, sends his 10-year-old daughter to a pricey private school in Hillsborough and wears suspenders and gold cuff links to the office.

Liberal or conservative? A fighter against the status quo or part of the establishment?

They're questions his allies and critics alike are asking as the firebrand - who won his office in an upset against the city's Democratic machine and has long been adored by progressives - has become the surprise crusader for pension reform.

Adachi is the man behind Proposition B, the most controversial measure on the city's Nov. 2 ballot, which would require city employees to pay more for their health and pension benefits.

The measure has incensed the city's powerful labor unions, and not a single other elected official will touch it. Its financial backers include a host of the city's most well-known venture capitalists, investment bankers and socialites.

While this fight may seem an odd one for the public defender, those who know Adachi best say he's always been a go-it-alone kind of person who delves deep into a subject regardless of what others think.

"He's a lone wolf," said Mark Iverson, a senior trial attorney in the homicide unit who has worked with Adachi since the 1980s. "He's very tenacious, and if he believes in something, he's going to pursue it and let the chips fall where they may."

Pursuing his cause

The 51-year-old Adachi, who begins every day at 5 a.m. lifting weights, said he's never been afraid of a fight and has never cared about being popular.

"I'm not the kind of person who has a lot of friends - I've always been that way," Adachi said. "My circle of friends and acquaintances has usually been involved in whatever I've been involved in."

Right now, that's reforming the city's pension and health care systems, two money-swallowing behemoths he sees as taking dollars from his office and from social services. He said it's clear no elected official will take on the issue in a serious way because of the labor unions - so he had to do it.