At some stage, there is a constitutional rights issue. An attornery is a representative of the person in court. Ie, he is the mechanism for the client to expres

At some stage, there is a constitutional rights issue. An attornery is a representative of the person in court. Ie, he is the mechanism for the client to express freely his position (defense). Limiting this is a free-speach issue, at some stage. You are forcing the defendent to speak through someone paid for by the government. While this is arguably true today for people in poverty, it seems a bit more uncouth to force this for each and every citizen under all conditions. Even those without resources, for example, could in theory arrange for a pro-bono intervention. But such intervention must by necessity free-ride on fee-earning clients. And without a viable business, there would be no-one to do the pro-bono work.