In my view, a side effect of our legal system is that it's a very generous public gift to lawyers. And there's probably a perverse incentive for lawyers to manipulate that system to make it more lucrative and exclusive (e.g., more complex, so that regular people can't take care of their own minor legal issues). As such, I see no problem with maintaining a more equitable distribution of legal support.

The ideal situation would be to establish a social norm, where successful pro bono defense work was a badge of honor. This work should include not only criminal defense, but also helping the poor deal with civil cases.