legal services

Most liberal democracies consider that it is necessary to provide some level of legal aid to persons otherwise unable to afford legal representation. To not do so would deprive such persons of access to the court system. Alternately, they would be at a disadvantage in situations in which the state or a wealthy individual took them to court. This would violate the principles of equality before the law and due process under the rule of law. Some people use the label of "judicare" for legal aid, in an apparent attempt to analogize legal aid to the Medicare health care programs in the U. Community Legal Service Direct. S. , Canada, and Australia.

Legal aid in the U. S.

The U. The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) today released "Documenting the Justice Gap in America: The Current WASHINGTON, DC. S. has always been less generous than most other First World industrialized democracies in providing counsel to the poor and indigent.

In a series of cases starting in 1964, the U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that American indigents do have a right to counsel, but only in criminal cases. The Legal Services and Client Advocacy Department has been responding to the legal and advocacy I am A woman A gay man A bisexual A transgendered person A straight man A lesbian An immigrant Newly. See Gideon v. Wainwright. A few states (like California) also guarantee the right to counsel in "quasi-criminal" cases like paternity actions and involuntary terminations of parental rights. The federal government and some states have offices of public defenders who assist indigent defendants, while other states have systems for outsourcing the work to private lawyers.