A public defender is a government-employed attorney who represents criminal defendants who cannot afford to hire a private attorney — the definition the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses for the title.
The work is full-scope criminal defense, the employer is federal, state or local government, and the client is appointed rather than retained.
This page covers the job from the career side: the day-to-day work, the offices, the caseload research, pay and entry.
What does a public defender do day to day?
The core of the job is criminal defense for appointed clients.
In the Bureau of Labor Statistics' description of government attorney work, prosecutors typically pursue the government's charges, while public defense attorneys represent criminal defendants who cannot afford to hire a private attorney — the two titles sit on opposite sides of the same cases.
Day to day, that means carrying a set of criminal matters through every stage: meeting and advising clients, developing the facts, researching and arguing motions, negotiating with the other side, and trying cases that don't resolve.
It is courtroom work at its center.
A defender's core product is advocacy, on behalf of people who did not choose their lawyer.
Defenders rarely work alone.
Offices staff up with investigators, paralegals and support personnel alongside the lawyers — federal defender organizations, for example, employ about 4,200 people across exactly those roles.
On hours: BLS reports that most lawyers work full time and some work more than 40 hours a week.
That is a figure for the profession as a whole rather than defense specifically, but court calendars and trial preparation set much of a defender's rhythm.
Where do public defenders work and who employs them?
Public defense is government work.
Lawyers held about 863,700 jobs in 2025, and per BLS the largest employer categories were legal services (52%), self-employed lawyers (11%), local government (8%), state government (7%) and federal government (5%).
BLS counts "public defender" among the attorney titles found in federal, state and local government.
The clearest published picture of defender offices is the federal one.
There are 83 authorized federal defender organizations, employing about 4,200 lawyers, investigators, paralegals and support personnel and serving 92 of the 94 federal judicial districts.
They come in two types: federal public defender organizations, whose staff are federal employees, and community defender organizations, which are grant-funded nonprofits.
Each chief federal public defender is appointed to a four-year term by the circuit's court of appeals.
The framework underneath is the Criminal Justice Act, which dates to 1964; 1970 amendments let districts with at least 200 appointments a year establish federal defender organizations.
Alongside the offices runs an assigned-counsel system: about 13,000 private CJA panel attorneys take federal appointments each year, and in districts that have a defender office, panel lawyers typically receive 30–40% of CJA cases.
Beyond the federal system, defender services are organized at the state and local level.
A reliable current count of those offices is not something our research verified — the Bureau of Justice Statistics is the primary source for defender-office counts and structures — so this page doesn't state one.
What skills and credentials does a public defender need?
The credential is the license.
Like every lawyer, a public defender typically needs a law degree and a state license — which usually requires passing that state's bar examination — and BLS lists the typical entry-level education for lawyers as a doctoral or professional degree.
There is no separate "public defender" credential; the qualification is bar admission, plus the criminal-defense skills an office builds on the job.
The skills that separate strong candidates are courtroom and client skills practiced at volume:
- Courtroom advocacy — hearings, motions and trials — because appointed cases are resolved in court, not at a desk.
- Criminal law and procedure, deeply enough to spot suppression issues, negotiate pleas and advise clients on consequences.
- Client work under pressure — defendants may be detained or skeptical of appointed counsel, and building trust quickly is part of the job.
- Case management at volume, since the workload research below attaches double- and triple-digit hour estimates even to lower-level cases.
Licensing rules change — confirm with the board
What does a typical caseload or workload look like?
The best current national benchmark for what defense work demands is the 2023 National Public Defense Workload Study, produced by RAND with the ABA and other partners.
It estimates the average hours an adult criminal case requires, by case type:
| Case type | Average hours per case |
|---|---|
| Case with possible life without parole | 286 |
| Murder | 248 |
| Sex crimes | 167 |
| Other high-severity felonies | 99 |
| Mid-severity felonies | 57 |
| Low-severity felonies | 35 |
| DUI | 33 and 19 |
| Misdemeanors | 22.3 and 13.8 |
| Probation or parole violations | 13.5 |
Where the study reports two figures for one case type, both are shown as published.
The estimates came out of a review of 17 state workload studies from 2005 to 2022 plus a Delphi panel of 33 expert criminal defense attorneys.
Read these as inputs, not outputs: they measure how many hours adequately representing one case is estimated to take.
The study does not say how many cases a particular office assigns each lawyer, and our research did not verify current per-lawyer caseload counts — so treat any single "average caseload" number with caution, and check the office and jurisdiction behind it.
How does the role compare with nearby attorney roles?
Prosecutor.
The mirror image.
BLS describes the pairing directly: prosecutors typically pursue the government's charges, while public defense attorneys represent the defendants who cannot afford to hire a private attorney.
Same courtrooms, same cases, opposite sides — and both are government jobs.
Private criminal defense attorney.
Same side of the case, different client relationship.
Retained clients choose — and pay for — their lawyer; a defender's clients are appointed because they cannot afford one.
The advocacy overlaps heavily; the economics and the client pipeline do not.
CJA panel attorney.
In the federal system, private lawyers take court appointments through the Criminal Justice Act — about 13,000 of them each year.
Panel attorneys are paid hourly under the Act — $177 an hour in non-capital cases and up to $226 an hour in capital cases for work on or after January 1, 2026, a rate that covers office overhead as well as pay — rather than salaried by an office.
Legal aid attorney.
Civil, not criminal.
The Legal Services Corporation, created by Congress in 1974, gives over 94% of its funding to 129 independent nonprofit legal aid programs that run more than 800 offices, serving households at or below 125% of the federal poverty guidelines — $19,563 for a one-person household in 2025.
Different dockets, same public-service instinct.
How do you become a public defender?
The path is the lawyer's path, then the defense specialization: a law degree, admission to the bar in the state where you want to practice, then applications to defender offices.
Start building the record before graduation — BLS notes that a successful summer job or internship during law school may result in an employment offer, and defender offices and criminal-defense clinics are the placements that count.
New graduates do land these jobs.
Public service — government, judicial clerkships and public interest — took 31.0% of Class of 2025 jobs (government 12.0%, public interest 9.0%, clerkships 10.0%).
NALP also credits growth in public defender and prosecutor roles as a key driver of the rise in bar-required jobs since the 64.4% low for the Classes of 2012–2013.
How much do public defenders make?
Federal wage data has no "public defender" series — the closest published figures cover lawyers as a whole.
The BLS median annual wage for lawyers was $159,670 in May 2025; by industry, $178,380 in the federal government, $131,390 in local government, $115,330 in state government and $157,870 in legal services.
Those medians describe all lawyers in each industry, not defenders alone, and BLS wage figures exclude self-employed lawyers and owners or partners of unincorporated businesses.
For entry level, the NALP Class of 2025 median starting salary was $81,000 in government and $75,000 in public interest.
A separate track: CJA panel appointments in federal cases pay $177 an hour in non-capital cases and up to $226 an hour in capital cases for work on or after January 1, 2026 — a rate that covers both pay and office overhead.
Where to find public defender jobs
Defender offices hire on government hiring cycles and often post openings one position at a time, so it pays to check listings regularly.
We keep a live board of public defender jobs — browse openings and filter by location.
The same offices hire non-lawyer staff: investigators, paralegals and support personnel are part of the defender staffing model, so legal staff candidates can target the same employers.
Career information, not legal advice. Licensing requirements are set state by state — confirm current rules with the bar admission authority where you intend to practice — and the pay figures above are as dated (BLS May 2025; NALP Class of 2025).