Relates to the right to counsel in certain family court proceedings

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Jabari Brisport says this is needed

This bill would enhance access to justice and assist the Family Court in effectively resolving paternity and child support violation cases, ensuring that both sides, not simply one side, in these cases have a right to appointed counsel if they cannot afford an attorney and, if a child is a party, that an attorney for the child be appointed. In parentage proceedings, counsel for the person acting as a surrogate is paid for by the intended parents, but there is no provision for counsel for other individuals who receive notice of and have a right to inter- vene in these cases. This measure would remedy these significant gaps in New York State law. Establishment of a right to counsel under Family Court Act § 262 in 1975 for adults in Family Court, including the right to appointed counsel for those who cannot afford an attorney, was accompanied by legislative findings underscoring the importance of this fundamental right. Section 261 of the Family Court Act provides: Persons involved in certain family court proceedings may face the infringements of fundamental interests and rights, including the loss of a child's society and the possibility of criminal charges, and therefore have a constitutional right to counsel in such proceedings. Counsel is often indispensable to a practical realization of due process of law and may be helpful to the court in making reasoned determinations of fact and proper orders of disposition. The purpose of this part is to provide a means for implementing the right to assigned counsel for indigent persons in proceedings under this act. Through a patchwork of enhancements since 1975, Family Court Act § 262 has been amended to delineate numerous categories of litigants whose rights are so important that the Legislature has determined they are entitled to have counsel assigned at public expense if they cannot afford attorneys. Several of these categories encompass all parties to the litigation, including, among others, all parties to family offense proceedings under Article 8 of the Family Court Act, a parent seeking child custody or contesting "substantial infringement" of custodial rights, and, in destitute minor cases under Article 10-C of the Family Court Act, any parents, caretakers, and "interested adults." However, Article 5 of the Family Court Act is an outlier in requiring only that counsel be appointed for the respondent in a paternity proceeding, regardless of whether the respondent is an alleged father or a birth parent defending an affirmative action by an alleged father. Likewise, a right to counsel is provided only for respondents in contempt and willful violation proceedings in child support matters under Article 4 of the Family Court Act, although petitioners in such cases may have significant perspectives to convey to the court. It is anomalous not to provide a right to counsel for both parties in this type of litigation, as both parties have fundamental interests and rights regarding determinations of child support, paternity, and parent- age with respect to children. Finally, although teenagers have sometimes been parties in both child support violation and paternity proceedings, both as petitioners and respondents, the current statutes do not clarify the applicability of the attorney for the child statutes to them. The rights that are being protected in a proceeding under Article 5 - either establishing or defending against the establishment of paternity (and increasingly, maternity) - are fundamentally the same. There is no reason to provide counsel to a respondent in a paternity case, who may be an alleged father or a birth parent, but deny counsel to the same person when they are a petitioner. In addition, many paternity and parentage proceedings involve third persons such as spouses of birth parents and earlier signatories of acknowledgments of parentage, whose status as parents are at risk in these proceedings and who are equally in need of counsel. Similarly, in Uniform Interstate C

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.