patrick.net

No they shouldnt.

Public defenders make salaries on par with District Attorneys...of course dependent on local jurisdiction and politics. And thats a decent salary...at least in LA County.

And 5 years a veteran? Theres a lot of LA County PD's who will retire out of there. Its hard to make a go of it as a private defense attorney. Not a lot of low life scumbags have any sort of financial benefits. Oh and lets talk about the benefits of a govt job.....

OTOH, the guys that are actually low paid are the ones that get appointed when there are multiple arrestees for the same crime. So one gets assigned a PD, one gets the Alternate Public Defender, and the rest get attorneys appointed by the court. Those appointees are typically the worst...never were good enough to get hired by one of the govt offices, and cant get enough business on their own. So they take court appointments which pay meh, and no benefits. And rightfully so they only make $80-120K/year dependent on how many cases they take and how much private business they can get. Generally they are the least effective defense attorneys and ought to be paid as such.