The Attorneys and Public Defenders

H.D.J labotorys The Dayton Ohio Scientist.

PUBLIC DEFENDERS AND ATTORNEYS Getting A Public Defender Appointed If you can't afford to hire a lawyer from the private legal community, the court can appoint a government-paid lawyer called a "public defender"- to represent you.

In order to have a public defender, you'll have to convince the judge that you can't afford to hire an attorney on your own. The judge may ask you to fill out a form detailing your financial resources, assets, income and debts.

You may also need to provide the court with documentation such as paystubs to prove your income level.

Standards for how much money you can make and still qualify for a public defender vary greatly from state to state, and sometimes from one court to another.

In rural areas and in courts with meager resources, there might not be public defenders on staff with the court to represent you. In that case, the court will usually appoint a private attorney at public expense, or assign a private attorney from a volunteer attorney list to represent you.

In some courts, judges allow for what's called "partial indigency" representation: you have the help of a public defender, but are expected to reimburse the court some of the cost of representation after the trial. I

f you give inaccurate information to the court in an effort to get a public defender appointed, you may be charged with the crime of falsifying information.

If the court decides you make too much money to qualify for a public defender, you'll want to immediately start looking for a private attorney to defend you.

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One downside of being represented by a public defender is that these government-paid lawyers often have a huge overload of cases, and cannot devote a lot of time to any one case.

As a result, you may have little or no access to your lawyer except during actual court hearings. Public defenders also often lack office equipment and adequate research access, and can't afford to hire investigators to properly flesh out your case.

Public defenders are often young and inexperienced, and are "cutting their teeth" on high-volume misdemeanor cases such as DWIs. A public defender also won't be able to assist you with related civil law or administrative matters (such as driver's license revocation hearings in a DWI case).

You'll need to hire a separate attorney to help you with these concerns.

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