Are all court- appointed attorneys employees of the Legal Defender’s Office?
No. Besides the Legal Defender’s Office, Yuma County also has a Public Defender’s Office and a Conflict Case Administrator’s Office. The Court will initially appoint the Public Defender’s Office to represent indigent defendants. The Public Defender will refer to the Legal Defender’s Office those cases the Public Defender cannot represent due to ethical conflict or caseload limitation reasons. In some cases, the Legal Defender determines our office should not participate in a particular case. This is done on the basis of what is known as a “conflict of interest” . There are many ways that this can come up, but usually it arises when more than one person who needs the assistance of an attorney is involved in the same situation. An attorney isn’t allowed to represent two people who may have conflicting interests in a situation. For this reason the court appoints separate lawyers from different offices. In Yuma County, the courts and the County have contracted with private lawyers who are
