I can no longer hear the term without a classic line from *Breaking Bad *immediately popping into my head : “Look man when the shit hits the fan you don’t want a criminal lawyer, you want a *criminal *lawyer, know what I mean ?” 
IANAL - yes, you are.
You asked for a cite on Legal Aid strikes/boycotts - I provided two.
I assume as someone active in the Canadian legal profession, you would be more aware of these than I was. Why did you ask?
I am well aware that the law, like any technical field, is far more complex the deeper you get into it, and generalities always have a “yes, but…” Honestly, I appreciate the in depth responses that allow me to learn more and clarify what I think I know but obviously don’t. If I didn’t post what I did, would you have answered in that depth? thank you.
And finally, just out of curiosity if you care to answer, how do legal aid rates compare to the typical going market rate where you practice? My impression is of course coloured by the news reports, obviously from lawyers who don’t want to accept those rates. I assume “Criminal Lawyers’ Association” in Ontario is somewhat representative of that field…
One thing I’d like to bring up is the relative populations.
The Houston metropolitan area alone has a greater population than Ireland in a smaller area. And that’s just one of the cities in the US and not even the largest or most densely populated.
Demographics alone goes some way to explaining how US attorneys can subsist on private defense practice.
Nitpick: Houston’s metro population is slightly less than the population of the Republic of Ireland. But that’s not really relevant. Texas (as a whole) has 0.03 lawyers per capita. Ireland has 0.002 (and that’s rounding up.) You should be asking yourself how Texan lawyers can survive, given the relative populations.
Do you mean the City of Houston or the Houston Metropolitan Area? Google shows the latter at 6.18 million as of 2012, about 1.5 million bigger than the Republic of Ireland.
You’ve got to be really good. 
I can tell you how things are in my county in New Jersey. Our court is quite busy.
On the local municipal level a public defender is available. They are not available for minor traffic violations. But if you are in front of the court for a minor criminal matter or a major traffic violation which might cause a suspension you have the opportunity to apply for a public defender. Those PDs are private attorneys who are contracted and have to come in once or twice a month.
At the county level they have a public defender office. The PDs are manned and funded about as well as the prosecutors. There is a wide range of experience and ability just like with the prosecutors. The pay is the same too. There are a number of lawyers who want the job as a stepping stone to private practice and some that use it as a career. There are a lot of lawyers in NJ and this isn’t a bad gig. Salary in the low 100s. Good benefits. No office overhead or malpractice insurance. Its a good way to make some political connections too.
Oh, just knock off the over officiousness crap.
No warning was issued because none was required.
That’s weird. When I looked up Ireland’s population yesterday it was 6.3 million. There is a conspiracy afoot! Or possibly I just looked at the wrong numbers.
You weren’t completely wrong - 6.3 is the population of the whole of Ireland, 4.58 million in the Republic of Ireland and 1.8 million in Northern Ireland.
This is a question a lot of lawyers are asking themselves.
Sorry. This is a question a lot of lawyers are asking themselves.
Moderator Note
Hawkins, you’ve been around long enough to know that complaints about moderation belong in ATMB. Further remarks like this will be subject to an official warning.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The way the system works in New York City is that the City hires a private company to handle public defense work for each County. All the counties use The Legal Aid Society now. Legal Aid represents every defendant at their first appearance in court, unless the defendant has a private attorney. They screen all the defendants and continue to represent the ones that qualify for a public defender because of their low income. If Legal Aid can’t represent a defendant due to a conflict of interest, then that defendant gets assigned a private attorney from a list of attorneys who are on a panel (call the 18B panel here).
A lot of private attorneys do not have enough private clients to support their practice and cannot stay in business without joining the 18B panel. Very few attorneys can support their practice with only private clients.
A private attorney has around 50 cases I believe (this number comes from asking a few private attorneys how many cases they have several years ago, so I might be wrong). And the 50 case number comes from attorneys who took public defense work. A private attorney with only paying clients might have even less cases.
Two major reasons. First, as already pointed out, they have more time than public defenders. When I interned at a public defenders office in New York City, the average case load was 150-200 cases.
Second, if you’re not a good attorney, chances are you will not be able to find enough clients to go private.
There are only two ways of gaining experience in criminal defense. Either work as a prosecutor or a defense attorney. Most of the good criminal attorneys have worked for the District Attorney’s office for around five years before starting their own practice. Of course, there are some that started out by working as a public defender. The problem is that it takes a considerable amount of money to start your own practice, and public defenders do not get paid well. Prosecutors do not make that much either, but the District Attorney’s office tends to attract a lot of attorneys from wealthy families.
You can also start out by working in a private defense firm, but that’s more difficult because private defense firms want attorneys with experience.
In New York City, a public defender gets around $50,000 to start. A salary for comfortable standard of living in the city is about $70,000. This next information I only know through rumors, but an experienced public defender can make up $80,000. I don’t think you can make more unless you are a director or managing attorney.
I bet most attorneys would prefer to go private. It’s the same work but you get paid a lot more. However, it’s very difficult to go private as a criminal defense attorney because there aren’t enough clients for everyone.
The public does think public defenders are bad, but for the wrong reasons. Most attorneys will agree that the public defenders office does an inferior job because they simply can’t devote the same amount of time to a case as a private attorney can.
Yeah, but I know the difference and definitely only googled the ROI numbers. weird.
I don’t know about the rest of Colorado, but in Denver, if you can’t afford a lawyer, you get a public defender and if they’re all busy or if you have a co-defendant who is already represented by a PD, then you get a regular criminal defense lawyer who has allowed him- or herself to be put on a list. The cost is very cheap compared to retaining your own defense attorney.
There are actually not that many PDs and quite a few lawyers who are de facto PDs by virtue of doing a lot of this kind of work. I think the client is supposed to cough up some nominal fee and Legal Aid supplements the fee somehow. A couple of lawyers I used to work for were in this pool, and while most of their work was paid (in advance) they did occasionally snag a few of these. They worked just as hard as for their paying clients.
But for the most part, criminals who for one reason or another manage to get one of these “real” criminal defense attorneys think they’ve won the lottery as compared to the PDs. That isn’t the case, really. The PDs do work hard, but the actual defense attorneys tend to be older and more experienced (the ones I worked for had all been prosecutors/ADAs for awhile before turning to the other side).