In 1963, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Gideon v. Wainwright, holding that states are required to provide counsel for criminal defendants who are unable to afford to hire their own lawyer.\u00a0Three years later in Miranda v. Arizona, the right to counsel was embedded in the ubiquitous \u201cMiranda warnings\u201d that anyone who has ever watched a TV cop show now knows.<\/p>\n
As important as those two decisions are, many Americans do not understand that there is no right to a lawyer in civil cases.\u00a0You can lose your home, your job, and even your children under circumstances that violate the law, but you have no right to a lawyer to assist you in protecting your rights.\u00a0You can, of course, hire a lawyer \u2013 if you have the money.\u00a0But for millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet, there is no way they can afford to hire a private attorney.<\/p>\n
For over 40 years, the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) has played a critical role in filling this gap in access to justice by funding legal aid organizations throughout the country.\u00a0Created during the Nixon administration with bipartisan support, LSC is the largest single funder of civil legal aid in the country.\u00a0The organizations that LSC funds handle critical civil legal needs of low-income people such as assisting military families and victims of domestic violence, representing parties in guardianship proceedings, and helping with housing matters such as evictions and foreclosures.<\/p>\n
The dollars invested in LSC are a minuscule portion of the federal budget, but President Trump has proposed eliminating all funding for LSC.\u00a0What a tragedy that would be.\u00a0One of the features of this country that makes it great is the aspiration of \u201cEqual Justice Under Law.\u201d\u00a0Denying access to justice for the most vulnerable takes us a step away from greatness.\u00a0I\u2019m proud to add my name to a letter signed by over 160 law deans urging our congressional leaders to continue to support the LSC. Learn more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1963, the Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Gideon v. Wainwright, holding that states are required to provide counsel for criminal defendants who are unable to afford to hire their own lawyer.\u00a0Three years later in Miranda v. Arizona, the right to counsel was embedded in the ubiquitous \u201cMiranda warnings\u201d that anyone who has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3329,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63322],"tags":[63323],"class_list":["post-37","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access-to-justice","tag-legal-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3329"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/lawdean\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}