Appointed Counsel in Civil Matters in Texas

             The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that a criminal defendant has a right to the assistance of counsel. This has been expanded by the United States Supreme Court to a rule that if a criminal defendant cannot afford counsel, a lawyer will be provided at no charge by the government. This right under the Sixth Amendment does not apply in civil cases because the Sixth Amendment does not apply to civil cases.
             Generally, lawyers are appointed for civil parties served by publication. Such a lawyer's job is to find the defendant, so that the plaintiff doesn't just pretend to notify the defendant and therefore violate due process clauses in the U.S. Constitution.

Texas courts have to appoint counsel for indigent parents fighting termination of their parental rights, parents whose rights may be terminated who are served by publication (as above), hard-to-find fathers or putative fathers.

Defendants' Rights to Appointed Counsel

In Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment grants an indigent defendant the right to state-appointed counsel in a criminal case that could result in incarceration. The same rule applies in criminal contempt proceedings other than summary proceedings under United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688 (1993).
As to appeals, the rules are more complicated. First, there is no federal constitutional rule that appeals be allowed in state courts at all. If appeals are allowed, though, criminal defendants threatened with or subjected to incarceration have a right to state-appointed appellate counsel on their first appeal of right.
My last blog post was an analysis of a June case of the Supreme Court of the United States as to a civil contemnor's right to appointed counsel. Later on, I'll discuss the law of appointed counsel in civil matters.