When you are facing criminal charges,there are important decisions to be made. Firstly you will need to decide whether to plead guilty or not,and you will need to decide if you want to take the punishment set aside by a prosecutor and ultimately you need to decide whether you’re going to use a lawyer or represent yourself. If you choose a lawyer,you need to know whether you’re going to use a public defender or private defense attorney.
One of the main disadvantages of hiring a public defender is that they are government employees. What this basically means is that they earn far less than private lawyers and since there are so many people who are unable to afford private lawyers,they usually have huge caseloads. Ultimately what this means for the client is that not only are public defenders overworked and underpaid,the fact that they have so many cases to prepare for means that they are at larger risk of making mistakes or probably not even having enough time to prepare a winning case.
The advantages of hiring a private- are the fact that they don’t have the amount of cases as public defenders do and can dedicate more time to each case. The more time they spend the better acquainted they get with the defendant and the more time they have to discover information and aid the defense. Since private attorneys charge you for legal services this means that they do have adequate funds to invest in more resources to help with the defense. They may have access to expert witnesses,private laboratories and private investigations to unearth even more crucial evidence for the case.
Another reason as to why private defense attorneys are better than public defenders is that they can be contacted in their offices by phone,while public defenders are extremely difficult to get a hold of. Private attorneys also have an obligation to maintain their reputation which is why they have an incentive to win each and every case.
