Does having a paid for attorney benefits me more than having a court appointed one?

Some of the best and worst attorneys are court appointed.? This holds true for retained attorneys also.

Court appointed lawyers, just like private lawyers, vary in skill and success rates. The problem is that you do not get to choose your court appointed lawyer. You do get to choose who you hire. If you luck out and get a very good court appointed lawyer, stick with him/her. If you are uncomfortable with the appointment, then hire a private attorney. Just don't wait too long. If you do hire a private lawyer, you do not want to go with the court appointed so long that the private lawyer's options are limited.

You do not say what the charge is. That is sometimes a factor.

While the public defenders office has some very competent attorneys, private criminal defense attorneys devote a lot of time to each and every case they handle. It is your choice to take the court appointed one or to hire a private one. Most criminal defense attorneys worked for either the public defender or the state attorney when starting out. Each case is different and it would not hurt to set up a few free consultations with private attorneys in your area.

The decision as to retain a private attorney or be represented by a public defender is a personal one, which you must make. Like everything else in life there are good/bad private attorneys and good/bad public defenders. The main differences are: (1) you are able to choose your private attorney and fire him if you do not think he is doing a good job defending you (2) with a public defender you have no input into who you get and it is usually extremely difficult to have your public defender replaced with another public defender, if you are not comfortable with him/her (3) due to the case load of most, if not all, public defenders, your appointed attorney may not have the time to explain everything to you that you need to know or answer all your questions (4) a private attorney can give you the "personal" touch you may want and should have the time to explain everything to you and answer all of your questions. There are pros and cons to either choice, but these are the main differences.

You get what you pay for. Public Defenders are notoriously busy, with each PD often handling a few hundred cases a month.

Appointed lawyers (PD) are usually busy and do not give you much time or hand holding. There are good and bad lawyers as PDs or private lawyers.

Privately retained lawyers generally have much smaller case loads and therefore more time to work on each case and are also generally more responsive to clients in terms of returning their calls, etc.

In SC, all attorneys (public defenders and members of the private bar) pass the same Bar Examination to become licensed to practice as attorneys. It would be wise to discuss your options in person with an attorney before making any decisions with regards to engaging any attorney to represent you.