During its two days of debate at its 2010 Annual Meeting, the American Bar Association (ABA) House of Delegates
approved fundamental requirements for effectively
providing representation to persons who cannot afford a lawyer in
adversarial civil proceedings involving such basic human needs as
shelter, sustenance, safety, health and child custody, that are
embodied in ABA Basic Principles of a Right to Counsel in Civil Legal Proceedings. The
policy was brought to the House by the ABA Standing Committee on Legal
Aid and Indigent Defendants with support from 12 other ABA entities and
bar associations. In a companion proposal, the House of Delegates
adopted the ABA Model Access Act, a model statute for use by implementing jurisdictions to establish and administer a civil right to counsel.
The goal of the ABA Basic Principles for a Right to Counsel in Civil Legal Proceedings (Principles) is to aid in implementing ABA policy that “urges federal, state, and territorial governments to provide legal counsel as a matter of right at public expense to low-income persons in those categories of adversarial proceedings where basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving shelter, sustenance, safety, health or child custody, as determined by each jurisdiction.”
To download a copy of the Principles, click here. For more on the policies adopted at the 2010 Annual Meeting, click here.