The Boston Bar Association provides specific proposals on implementing a civil right to counsel in Massachusetts in a September 2008 report from its Task Force on Civil Right to Counsel. The report, Gideon’s New Trumpet: Expanding the Civil Right to Counsel in Massachusetts, proposes nine pilot projects in the areas of housing, juvenile, family and immigration law.
The projects would provide civil legal representation in specific scenarios, including: parents in custody disputes where the other parent has counsel; mentally-impaired tenants facing eviction for reasons related to their impairment; low-income non-citizens seeking asylum or threatened with deportation; un-befriended seniors facing commitment to a nursing home.
The report estimates the cost of running these projects for three years at $9 million, but expects that they will demonstrate the social and economic benefits of providing civil legal representation. A press release on the report is available here.
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