Civil Gideon as a Human Right: Is the U.S. Going to Join Step with the Rest of the Developed World
![handle is hein.journals/tempcr15 and id is 777 raw text is: CIVIL GIDEON AS A HUMAN RIGHT: IS THE U.S. GOING
TO JOIN STEP WITH THE REST OF THE DEVELOPED
WORLD
by RAVEN LIDMAN*
INTRODUCTION
On August 7, 2006 the American Bar Association House of Delegate at their
annual convention voted unanimously in favor of a Civil Gideon. The resolution
reads:
RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association 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.'
ABA President Michael Greco made this the hallmark of his administration and
succeeded in one year.2 As he said after the vote, This is historic, in the realm of
an extraordinarily meaningful action by the ABA, expressing the principle that
every poor American, like every wealthy American, should have access to a lawyer
to protect the fundamental needs of human existence.'3
This vote affirms the aspirations of many lawyers that the promise of Gideon
v. Wainwright4 would apply in the civil courts as well. It particularly affirms the
ceaseless efforts of Justice Earl Johnson5 to establish a right to a publicly provided
Clinical Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law; J,D., Seattle University School of
Law, 1987; B.A., Cornell University, 1977.
1. 2006 Report to House of Delegates 1, available at
http://abanet.orgleadership/2006/annuallonehundredtwelvea.doc (last visited Dec. 11, 2006).
2. Micheal S. Greco, then President-Elect, American Bar Association, Speech at Fellows of the
Alabama law Foundation Annual Dinner, Montgomery Alabama (Jan. 28, 2005) (I believe that the time
has come for us to recognize, finally, that a poor person whether facing either a serious criminal or civil
matter, must have access to counsel if that person is to receive justice.).
3. See James Podgers, A Civil Law Gideon, August 8, 2006, available at
http://www.abanet.org/joumalldaily/am8house.html.
4. 372 U.S. 335 (1963) (requiring publicly paid lawyers for low income criminal defendants).
5. Justice Earl Johnson, Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeals, is one of the few who
has passionately supported his arguments for a Civil Gideon by exploring the status of the right to free
civil counsel for indigents under other legal systems. EARL JOHNSON ET AL., TOWARD EQUAL JUSTICE:
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF LEGAL AID IN MODERN SOCIETIES (1975) [hereinafter TOWARD EQUAL
JUSTICE]; Earl Johnson, Thrown to the Lions: A Plea for a Constitutional Right to Counsel for Low-
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Civil Gideon as a Human Right: Is the U.S. Going to Join Step with the Rest of the Developed World
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