Right to counsel in civil cases?
Should people have a right to counsel (the right to have legal representation eg. in the form of an attorney?) in civil cases? In criminal cases if a defendant can't afford an attorney they can expect to have one provided for them at the state's expense.
http://www.abanet.org/yld/tyl/jan10/divide.shtml
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I think it's a worthwhile issue, I'm not sure where I stand. Though I think a big difference is that in criminal cases, the state is prosecuting, making it a bit unfair for the state to throw its massive resources at someone with no representation. Civil cases tend to have softer "lines" than criminal ones.
That said, in an age of clogged court systems it's exceedingly hard to get good state-appointed lawyers for criminals who need them. I believe many studies have shown that state appointed lawyers tend to be overworked and underincentivized to do a good job.
One workaround may be to adapt the civil system of the British and require that civil plaintiffs pay defendant legal costs if they lose. Besides helping keep frivolous shit out of the courts, it would help incentivize private lawyers to represent clients who can pay if the lawyers win.
Though if the civil defendant has a bad case I guess that also means they are screwed twice-over.
No, I don't think so, but I do agree that the losers of the case should in general pay costs.
Dread: In the UK the loser pays the winner's costs (in general) whether defendent or plaintiff, it makes no difference. Side-problem now is a proliferation of "ambulance chasing" "no-win no fee" lawyers. They advertise that if they lose they waive their costs, if they win the other party pay's their costs so the plaintiff gets to keep all their winnings from the case. Insurance companies settle outside of court so the dodgy lawyers and their dodgy clients win. Means almost everyone who gets the slightest rear bump from someone else suddenly has whiplash etc ... if "no-win no-fee" was outlawed so someone without whiplash lost their case and had to pay the legal fees from it then we might see a further reduction in frivolous cases.
What Hugo Black said is true, but we just saw in that thread about the hit and run that having the state provide a lawyer *in that case the prosecution* doesn't change that situation too much. It still usually comes down to who can afford better/more lawyers. The US is a fairly litigious society and there are a fair amount of lawyers out there that even people without much money can afford *the truly indigent, by their nature, can't really afford anything though* but it's just not good enough to beat anyone/thing other than another budget attorney. And that's not going to change with court-appointed counsel.Originally Posted by Aimless
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Given that we have the same phenomena here, I guess the issue is that access to legal representation has become so widespread that it's clogging the courts. Which brings up an interesting question over whether it's possible for "too many" people to have access to legal representation.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote