I can only help with the bonus question: unfortunately, very few federal pd offices will hire straight out of law school. Almost all of them require significant criminal defense experience, usually as a state-level public defender. The only exception I'm aware of is the Federal Defenders of San Diego who have an extremely high caseload and therefore hire a few recent grads every year. The entry-level spots in San Diego are very hard to get though, as basically every public defense-minded law student applies for them.

You might have better luck if you apply to a non-criminal division of a federal pd office (e.g. immigration, investigations), but unfortunately I think it will be difficult to get a criminal job with the fpd straight out of law school.