State Equal Justice Act


In 2004, the California Commission on Access to Justice established a task force to prepare a generic state statute expanding the right to counsel in civil cases. In brief, the task force's mission was to think through the numerous questions involved in implemeting a comprehensive right to counsel in civil cases, including the scope of the right, exclusion of certain cases or types of cases, eligibility issues, service delivery system, and administration of the new right. This draft represents the group's resolution of these issues and is intended as a starting point for use in any state considering implementation of expansion of a statutory right to counsel. The composition and work of the task force is described in some detail in The California Model Statute Task Force, 40 Clearinghouse Review 176 (July-August 2006).

The task force is now working on the draft of a "State Basic Access Act" designed to implement a narrower right to counsel, which it anticipates will be posted on this website sometime in the next few months.