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Providing indigent defendants with publicly financed lawyers is a worldwide practice. China developed a “lawyers for all” program to expand the provision of legal counsel to indigent defendants. Guangdong is among the eight pilot provinces, which started to carry out this program in 2017.  Using data from 4,133 defendants charged with robbery in Guangdong province, this study finds that although this program increased the rate of indigent defendants being represented by a court-appointed lawyer significantly, overall case outcomes did not change. To explore why this null effect occurred, this study further assesses each type of lawyers’ effect on case outcomes. Surprisingly, before the LFA program, the results show that, on average, court-appointed lawyers were able to help defendants receive a more lenient sentencing outcome compared to defendants without a lawyer. This effect, however, disappeared after the LFA program was announced. More inexperienced appointed lawyers were found to enter the criminal justice system, which compromised the overall quality of legal aid services.

Yuhao Wu is a doctoral student in Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Laws(LL.B.), B.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in criminal law at Peking University in China. Yuhao's main area of research centers on criminal justice policy and place-based dimensions of crime. His dissertation uses statistical methods to understand the role of recent legal reforms in shaping the criminal justice system in China.