¶ … private vs. public defense Anyone who has been charged in the court of law automatically needs to some form of legal representation. Criminal defense lawyers therefore represent those people who have been charged with crime. However there is a difference in the criminal defense lawyers there are those ones that work on their own as private defense lawyers and others are public defense team. In some constitutions it is stated that everyone is permitted to be represented by an attorney be it a public defender or a private attorney. Any lawyer can represent a person in court but public defense lawyers specifically offer to their clients experience and knowledge that is only available through their daily practice in the criminal defense law. Public defenders are lawyers who have been appointed to represent people who are not in a financial position to hire an attorney to represent them. Public defense agencies are supported by public funding but are ethically expected to be independent and not in any way supposed to take directions from the government when it comes to accepting to handle cases or when they hire their staff. Public defenders operate from a public defense office and they are paid country, state or a federal jurisdiction in which they are located on the other hand private defense lawyers often practice on their own or as partners.

There are pros and cons of the use of each type of attorney this paper will therefore look at the various props and cons of private and public defense. Before the pros and cons are critically examined we will look at how really are the public and private defenders similar and different. Public defenders and private attorneys have the same schooling and are bearers of the same license truly speaking they have more in common than differences. A public defender...

When it comes to experience, public defenders experience would vary from an individual just like a private defense attorney. One major difference between the two is the resources that are available to them. This difference is clearly manifested through the public defenders having a large caseload as compared to the private defenders. It can also manifest in the fact that public defenders have less access to tools such as private investigators which are important tools ( Mia, 2010).
The amount of resources at the disposal of public defenders greatly depends on how well funded the public defense office is funded. Private defenders on the contrary have unlimited time, and resources that they can spend on their clients this only depending on how much the client is willing to pay. The final difference is that public defenders cannot refuse a case provided a case qualifies under public defender program; the assigned public defender is not in a position to refuse it not unless they have a very good reason like having conflict of interest with another client. On the contrary private defenders can refuse taking up cases with any reason they have. However there are pros and cons of the use of each type of attorney this paper will therefore look at the various props and cons of private and public defense (Bonadio, 2012).

The pros of using a public defender are first low income clients also have access to legal representation as oppose to defending themselves. To sought legal advice is preferred when it comes to defense in the court since prosecutors and judges can be intimidating especially when it in the case for people who have committed an offense for the first time. Another pro-is the fact that the services of public defenders are…