In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that “in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him [or her].” Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 344 (1963). Accordingly, the court concluded that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel, which includes the right of an indigent defendant to have an attorney appointed to represent him or her at the government’s expense, is applicable to criminal proceedings in state courts. Identifying and applying the necessary resources to meet this heavy responsibility has challenged government for over half a century.

In 1965, the New York Legislature responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Gideon by enacting Article 18-B of the County Law, which assigns all responsibility for making attorneys available to indigent defendants to the counties of the state, except within New York City, where that responsibility is assigned to the city. This law requires the city and each of the 57 counties outside the city to establish a plan for the provision of counsel to indigent defendants. Such a plan may consist of creating a public defender office, or designating a private legal aid bureau or society, or adopting a plan of a bar association, coordinated by an administrator, under which private counsel are provided on a rotating schedule (see County Law §722). The city and the counties are also required to provide the vast majority of the funding for the compensation of assigned counsel.

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