The question most people ask in the first week after an arrest is whether the attorney the court gives them is any good, and the honest answer starts somewhere less satisfying: with an affidavit, a form, and a clerk's calculation. Before quality enters the picture at all, a state court has to decide whether you qualify for appointed counsel, and that decision is made on numbers you supply under oath. A careful reader checks the form before checking the attorney. What the screening asks, what it counts, and what it quietly leaves out all shape the choice that follows.
What the indigency form actually measures
Financial screening varies by state and often by county, but the shape is consistent: gross household income measured against a multiple of the federal poverty guidelines, then adjustments for dependents, liquid assets, and sometimes existing debt. Some jurisdictions run the screening through a pretrial services officer, others through the judge at first appearance, and a few through a separate indigency clerk who never sees the courtroom. The form is a sworn statement, which matters, because misstating income on it is its own problem. Read what counts as an asset. Equity in a vehicle you need for work is treated very differently across state lines.
Two details are worth checking before you assume you earn too much. Many states apply a partial indigency or contribution standard, appointing counsel while ordering you to repay a set amount over time, which functions less like free representation than like a court-administered payment plan. And several states instruct the judge to weigh the actual cost of retaining private counsel for the charged offense against your available funds, so a person with a steady paycheck facing a serious felony may qualify where the same person facing a misdemeanor would not. The threshold is not a single line. It moves with the exposure.
Reading caseload numbers honestly
Public defender caseload figures circulate widely, and they are real, but they measure workload distribution rather than the competence of the person assigned to you. A defender carrying a heavy misdemeanor docket may have handled several hundred cases in the same courtroom, before the same judge, against the same prosecutors, and that repetition is worth something concrete at the plea stage. A private attorney with twelve open files may have none of that local knowledge. Caseload tells you about available hours. It says nothing about trial experience, relationships with the diversion coordinator, or whether the office has an investigator on staff.
What caseload numbers do predict fairly well is responsiveness and preparation lead time. If the office is stretched, expect fewer returned calls, later file review, and a first substantive conversation that happens closer to the court date than you would like. That is a real cost and it is fair to weigh it. It is not the same as being represented badly. The American Bar Association is the body that sets and maintains the professional standards defense counsel work under, appointed and retained alike, and those duties do not thin out with the size of a docket.
Where paying changes something you can point to
Hiring counsel buys time and control, and the honest version of the pitch stops there. Time means someone can meet you before arraignment, contact the detective before a charging decision hardens, retain an expert, or file a motion that a triaged docket would not reach. Control means you choose the specific lawyer rather than the office, and you can choose one who tries cases in that courthouse regularly. Those are concrete. Pre-charge intervention, an independent forensic review, a case where immigration or professional licensing consequences require specialized analysis, a trial that will run more than a few days: these are the situations where the money buys work that would otherwise not happen.
What paying does not buy is a different judge, a friendlier prosecutor, or a better plea offer purely by virtue of the fee. Offers in most state courts follow charging policy, criminal history, and the strength of the evidence. A careful reader asks a prospective private attorney one question above all others: what specifically will you do in the next thirty days that the appointed office would not have time to do? A good answer is a list of tasks. A vague answer about attention and dedication is a signal to keep asking.
Checking the attorney you were given
You can evaluate appointed counsel with the same questions you would ask someone charging you fifteen thousand dollars. Ask how many cases like yours they have tried in that courthouse, whether their office has investigators and forensic consultants, when they expect discovery, and what the realistic timeline looks like. Ask whether they intend to file any pretrial motions and which ones. Most states also have a documented process for requesting substitute appointed counsel when communication genuinely breaks down, distinct from simply disliking the advice you received. Knowing that process exists is more useful than assuming the first assignment is permanent.
The comparison worth making is not appointed against retained in the abstract. It is this attorney, on this docket, with this office's resources, against a specific named private attorney whose fee you have in writing and whose plan for the next month you have heard out loud.