Attorney Value-Added and Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System -- by Maya Mikdash, Mark Hoekstra, Suhyeon Oh

Racial disparities permeate the criminal justice system, yet indigent defense attorneys remain understudied despite representing 80% of defendants. Using quasi-randomly court-appointed attorneys in a large Texas county, we show that higher-quality attorneys are less experienced and attended lower-quality law schools. Low-quality representation disproportionately harms Black defendants: a one-standard-deviation increase in quality raises Black dismissal rates nearly twice that of Whites’ (7.1% versus 3.9%), and top-10% representation increases dismissals by 12–17% and reduces jail by 13-22% relative to Whites. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest if half of court-appointed attorneys were top-10% quality, the racial gap in jail sentencing would decline by 11%.