Is Your Lawyer a Lemon? Incentives and Selection in the Public Provision of Criminal Defense

Amanda Agan, Matthew Freedman and Emily Owens

No 24579, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Governments in the U.S. must offer free legal services to low-income people accused of crimes. These services are frequently provided by assigned counsel, who handle cases for indigent defendants on a contract basis. Court-assigned attorneys generally garner worse case outcomes than privately retained attorneys. Using detailed court records from one large jurisdiction in Texas, we find that the disparities in outcomes are primarily attributable to case characteristics and within-attorney differences across cases in which they are assigned versus retained. The selection of low-quality lawyers into assigned counsel and endogenous matching in the private market contribute less to the disparities.

JEL-codes: H44 H76 J15 J38 K14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta and nep-law
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Published as Amanda Agan & Matthew Freedman & Emily Owens, 2021. "Is Your Lawyer a Lemon? Incentives and Selection in the Public Provision of Criminal Defense," The Review of Economics and Statistics, vol 103(2), pages 294-309.

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Working Paper: Is Your Lawyer a Lemon? Incentives and Selection in the Public Provision of Criminal Defense (2017)
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