Would modest funding for legal defence make a real difference for poor-to-middle-class people? One of our nastier social problems is that the legal system assu

Would modest funding for legal defence make a real difference for poor-to-middle-class people? One of our nastier social problems is that the legal system assumes people have realistic means of defending themselves when prosecutors charge them with crimes. But for people without savings -- which is a lot of people -- that's not really true, so they end up taking all kinds of crappy plea-bargains rather than actually contesting the government's accusations in court. There's legal aid, of course, but it tends to be funded at very low levels, and done by either wildly overworked staffers or contractors paid at such low levels they rarely deliver a spirited defence. If the down-and-out were given enough money for a real defence, would the law deliver results that are more just? By what metric? And how much money would it take to make a real difference?