This model contract is designed to facilitate the implementation of the NLADA and ABA guidelines for promoting quality in a contract defender program, to give practical, usable form to the guidelines with minimal need for implementational drafting. 

It is intended to help ensure that indigent individuals accused of crime in a jurisdiction which has opted to contract for indigent defense services do not receive a lesser quality of justice than similarly situated individuals in a neighboring jurisdiction with an adequately funded and administered public defender or assigned counsel system.