Getting advice from your attorney to go to trial instead of accepting an offered plea bargain might be considered to be ineffective assistance. This law, called the Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), requires you to file a petition with the court, asking to appeal your conviction.You will be precluded from asserting ineffective assistance of counsel concerning all proceedings in which you represent yourself. Note that claiming ineffective assistance of counsel means that you give up some of your attorney-client confidentiality privileges with that attorney. The Post-Conviction Relief Act is designed to help convicted defendants challenge their cases even after ordinary appeals have been exhausted. Convicted defendant's claim that counsel's assistance was so defective as to require reversal of a conviction . . . A PCRA petition may be obtained through a motion in a pending civil action. Nearly every federal criminal defendant will be found guilty, whether pursuant to a plea agreement or a trial. The Strickland Court crafted this test for courts to utilize when evaluating post conviction claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. You need to tell the court that your public defender has not talked to you and ask the court to relieve the PD's office and appoint other counsel.