Today’s Los Angeles Times reports that the Governor has signed a landmark bill funding court-appointed counsel for family law and other litigants through a $10 filing fee increase. AB 590 (Feuer) mandates that 20% of these funds go to court-appointed counsel for parents and children — particularly in cases where one parent has counsel, and the other does not.
ACFLS should play a leadership role in helping courts develop the criteria for appointed counsel, and in training lawyers to represent parents and children in child custody cases.
Please contact Assemblyman Mike Feuer at Assemblymember.Feuer@assembly.ca.gov (whose wife briefly sat as an L.A. Family Law judge) and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and thank them for AB 590.
The Legislative Findings make me so happy today, that I am pasting them here in full:
SECTION 1. The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following: (a) There is an increasingly dire need for legal services for poor Californians. Due to insufficient funding from all sources, existing programs providing free services in civil matters to indigent and disadvantaged persons, especially underserved groups such as elderly, disabled, children, and non-English-speaking persons, are not adequate to meet existing needs. (b) The critical need for legal representation in civil cases has been documented repeatedly, and the statistics are staggering. California courts are facing an ever increasing number of parties who go to court without legal counsel. Over 4.3 million Californians are believed to be currently unrepresented in civil court proceedings, largely because they cannot afford representation. Current funding allows legal services programs to assist less than one-third of California's poor and lower income residents. As a result, many Californians are unable to meaningfully access the courts and obtain justice in a timely and effective manner. The effect is that critical legal decisions are made without the court having the necessary information, or without the parties having an adequate understanding of the orders to which they are subject. (c) The modern movement to offer legal services for the poor was spearheaded by Sargent Shriver in 1966, aided by the American Bar Association, then headed by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, driven by the large disparity that existed between the number of lawyers available for poor Americans compared with the availability of legal services for others. While much progress has been made since then, significant disparity continues. According to federal poverty data, there was one legal aid attorney in 2006 for every 8,373 poor people in California. By contrast, the number of attorneys providing legal services to the general population is approximately one for every 240 people - nearly 35 times higher. (d) The fair resolution of conflicts through the legal system offers financial and economic benefits by reducing the need for many state services and allowing people to help themselves. There are significant social and governmental fiscal costs of depriving unrepresented parties of vital legal rights affecting basic human needs, particularly with respect to indigent parties, including the elderly and people with disabilities, and these costs may be avoided or reduced by providing the assistance of counsel where parties have a reasonable possibility of achieving a favorable outcome. (e) Expanding representation will not only improve access to the courts and the quality of justice obtained by these individuals, but will allow court calendars that currently include many self-represented litigants to be handled more effectively and efficiently. Increasing the availability of legal representation for litigants who must currently represent themselves or face loss of their legal rights is a key priority of the Judicial Council and Chief Justice Ronald M. George. As the Chief Justice has noted, the large and growing number of self-represented litigants is one of the most challenging issues in the coming decade, imposing significant costs on the judicial system and the public by impairing the ability of the courts to efficiently process heavy caseloads, and eroding the public's confidence in our judicial system. While court self-help services are important, those services are insufficient alone to meet all needs. Experience has shown that those services are much less effective when, among other factors, unrepresented parties lack income, education, and other skills needed to navigate a complex and unfamiliar court process, and particularly when unrepresented parties are required to appear in court or face opposing counsel. Recognizing that not all indigent parties may be allowed representation, even when they have meritorious cases, and that self-help services cannot meet the needs of all unrepresented parties, courts presented with disputes regarding basic human needs that involve low-income litigants facing parties who are represented by counsel have a special responsibility to employ best practices designed to ensure that unrepresented parties obtain meaningful access to justice and to guard against the involuntary waiver or other loss of rights or the disposition of those cases without appropriate information and regard for potential claims and defenses, consistent with principles of judicial neutrality. The experience and data collected through a pilot program will assist the courts and the legal community in developing new strategies to provide legal representation to overcome this challenge. (f) The doctrine of equal justice under the law is based on two principles. One is that the substantive protections and obligations of the law shall be applied equally to everyone, no matter how high or low their station in life. The second principle involves access to the legal system. Even if we have fair laws and an unbiased judiciary to apply them, true equality before the law will be thwarted if people cannot invoke the laws for their protection. For persons without access, our system provides no justice at all, a situation that may be far worse than one in which the laws expressly favor some and disfavor others. (g) Many judicial leaders acknowledge that the disparity in outcomes is so great that indigent parties who lack representation regularly lose cases that they would win if they had counsel. A growing body of empirical research confirms the widespread perception that parties who attempt to represent themselves are likely to lose, regardless of the merits of their case, particularly when the opposing party has a lawyer, while parties represented by counsel are far more likely to prevail. Judicial leaders and scholars also believe that the presence of counsel encourages settlements. Just as importantly, court opinion surveys show that more than two-thirds of Californians believe low-income people usually receive worse outcomes in court than others. Unfairness in court procedures and outcomes, whether real or perceived, threatens to undermine public trust and confidence in the courts. The sense that court decisions are made through a process that is fair and just, both in substance and procedure, strongly affects public approval and confidence in California courts. As many legal and judicial leaders have noted, the combined effect of widespread financial inability to afford representation coupled with the severe disadvantages of appearing in court without an attorney foster a destructive perception that money drives the judicial system. Respect for the law and the legal system is not encouraged if the public perceives, rightly or wrongly, that justice is mainly for the wealthy. (h) Equal access to justice without regard to income is a fundamental right in a democratic society. It is essential to the enforcement of all other rights and responsibilities in any society governed by the rule of law. It also is essential to the public's confidence in the legal system and its ability to reach just decisions. (i) The adversarial system of justice relied upon in the United States inevitably allocates to the parties the primary responsibility for discovering the relevant evidence, finding the relevant legal principles, and presenting them to a neutral judge or jury. Discharging these responsibilities generally requires the knowledge and skills of a legally trained professional. The absence of representation not only disadvantages parties, it has a negative effect on the functioning of the judicial system. When parties lack legal counsel, courts must cope with the need to provide guidance and assistance to ensure that the matter is properly administered and the parties receive a fair trial or hearing. Those efforts, however, deplete scarce court resources and negatively affect the court's ability to function as intended, including causing erroneous and incomplete pleadings, inaccurate information, unproductive court appearances, improper defaults, unnecessary continuances, delays in proceedings for all court users, and other problems that can ultimately subvert the administration of justice. (j) Because in many civil cases lawyers are as essential as judges and courts to the proper functioning of the justice system, the state has just as great a responsibility to ensure adequate counsel is available to both parties in those cases as it does to supply judges, courthouses, and other forums for the hearing of those cases. (k) Many of those living in this state cannot afford to pay for the services of lawyers when needed for them to enjoy fair and equal access to justice. In some cases, justice is not achievable if one side is unrepresented because the parties cannot afford the cost of representation. The guarantees of due process and equal protection as well as the common law that serves as the rule of decision in California courts underscore the need to provide legal representation in critical civil matters when parties cannot afford the cost of retaining a lawyer. In order for those who are unable to afford representation to exercise this essential right of participants in a democracy, to protect their rights to liberty and property, and to the pursuit of basic human needs, the state has a responsibility to provide legal counsel without cost. In many cases decided in the state's adversarial system of civil justice the parties cannot gain fair and equal access to justice unless they are advised and represented by lawyers. In other cases, there are some forums in which it may be possible for most parties to have fair and equal access if they have the benefit of representation by qualified nonlawyer advocates, and other forums where parties can represent themselves if they receive self-help assistance. (l) The state has an interest in providing publicly funded legal representation and nonlawyer advocates or self-help advice and assistance, when the latter is sufficient, and doing so in a cost-effective manner by ensuring the level and type of service provided is the lowest cost type of service consistent with providing fair and equal access to justice. Several factors can affect the determination of when representation by an attorney is needed for fair and equal access to justice and when other forms of assistance will suffice. These factors include the complexity of the substantive law, the complexity of the forum's procedures and process, the individual's education, sophistication, and English language ability, and the presence of counsel on the opposing side of the dispute. (m) If those advised, assisted, or represented by publicly funded lawyers are to have fair and equal access to justice, those lawyers must be as independent, ethical, and loyal to their clients as those serving clients who can afford to pay for counsel. (n) The services provided for in Section 5 of this act are not intended to, and shall not, supplant legal services resources from any other source. This act does not entitle any person to receive services from a particular legal services provider, nor shall this act override the local or national priorities of existing legal services programs. The services provided for in Section 5 of this act are likewise not intended to undermine any existing pilot programs or other efforts to simplify court procedures or provide assistance to unrepresented litigants. Furthermore, nothing in this act shall be construed to prohibit the provision of full legal representation or other appropriate services funded by another source. SEC. 2. In light of the large and ongoing justice gap between the legal needs of low-income Californians and the legal resources available to meet those needs, it is the intent of the Legislature to encourage the legal profession to make further efforts to meet its professional responsibilities and other obligations by providing pro bono legal services and financial support of nonprofit legal organizations that provide free legal services to underserved communities.