Indigent Defense

A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, and some states of Australia. Brazil is the only country in which an office of government-paid lawyers with the specific purpose of providing full legal assistance and representation to the needy free of charge is established in the constitution. The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, requires the US government to provide legal counsel to indigent defendants in criminal cases. Public defenders in the United States are lawyers employed by or under contract with county, state or federal governments.

By country

In civil law countries, following the model from the French Napoleonic Code of criminal procedure, the courts typically appoint private attorneys at the expense of the state.

Australia

The Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales both have dedicated Public Defenders chambers. These chambers retain barristers who are employed by the state government to represent legally-aided clients who are charged with serious indictable offences. In New South Wales, Public Defenders only appear in criminal matters, both at trial and appellate level, while in Victoria, Public Defenders also undertake some family law and civil work.

The New South Wales Senior Public Defender is Belinda Rigg, Senior Counsel, who was the first female public defender in NSW upon her appointment in 2019. In Victoria, the Chief Public Defender is Tim Marsh.

In Queensland, the Legal Aid Office (Queensland) was merged with the Public Defender's Office in 1991, in an expanded service providing clients to access family, civil and all criminal law services.

Brazil

The Constitution of Brazil uniquely provides for a public defenders' office (''Defensoria Pública'') at both state and federal levels. Public defense is a right to poor people, who must declare, formally, that they cannot afford regular legal aid, to benefit from public defenders' services.

Public defenders, like prosecutors and judges, are admitted to their positions through civil service examination. The public defender's office assists the poor and lower middle-class in both civil and criminal matters, although the poorest states in the country are still struggling to set up a state public defenders office.

Public defense in Brazil dates back to 1897, when a decree mandated government-funded legal assistance in the state of Rio de Janeiro, then called Legal Assistance (''Assistência Jurídica''). The Constitution of 1937 extended ''Assistência Jurídica'' to the entire country, but without the same effectiveness that is derived from the current, 1988 Constitution.

Germany

Germany provides legal representation, legal advice, and help in covering court costs in civil cases to those who cannot raise the necessary funds to hire an attorney, but only when there is a reasonable chance of success. In criminal cases where the defendant faces at least one year of imprisonment, the defendant has the right to legal counsel. Although there is a right to legal defense, there is no organized public defender system. Instead, any lawyer can be appointed to provide counsel to a specific defendant, and the defendant can select a specific lawyer. Questions of payment are deferred until the end of a trial, and the court will decide the cost of the case to the losing party. The defendant will not be charged for legal services if acquitted. If convicted, the defendant will be required to pay the lawyer's expenses unless the court finds that the defendant is indigent