In an age of rising crime and arrest rates, the criminal justice system in the United States is being buried under an ever increasing burden of numbers. At the same time, the legal profession is being challenged to provide representation for those indigents to whom the Supreme Court has recently extended the right to appointed counsel. This extension, coupled with the increasingly large proportion of criminal defendants who are indigent, has given rise to the proliferation of various systems and organizations whose purpose is to provide defense for those who cannot afford retained counsel.