New report on indigent eligibility guidelines
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law explores the eligibility guidelines across the nation in this new report and makes several recommendations:
- Screen people seeking the appointment of counsel to ensure that they are financially eligible.
- Apply screening criteria and processes uniformly, and commit them to writing.
- Ensure that screening is performed by someone who does not have a conflict of interest.
- Ensure that counsel is provided to those unable to afford it.
- Streamline screening to speed up the process and save money.
- Ensure that required procedural protections are in place.
What is your experience? Who determines eligibility in your jurisdiction? Do you take into consideration homes and vehicles? What about debt? Do you feel that you represent people who can afford counsel or don’t represent enough people who can’t?
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Judges in my area make the call, so it varies pretty widely. We have sometimes been appointed to people who shouldn’t have appointed counsel and other times we’ve been denied to people who probably really needed it. In general, from what I’ve seen, having a house (even if it’s in foreclosure) or any other major asset is pretty much an automatic disqualifier for PD eligibility. Debts aren’t really considered too much. But, like I said, it varies widely from judge to judge.
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