What if I can't afford an attorney?

What if I can't afford an attorney?

If you can't afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you free of charge by the court. A public defender will be appointed. It is one of the great legal myths that public defenders are not good attorneys. They are good attorneys. As a matter of fact, some of the best attorneys are public defenders. They are, what we in the trade call, true believers. They really believe in what they're doing and they don't do it for the money. The difficulty is that sometimes they are very, very overworked. They have a lot more cases than a private lawyer does.