Can’t Afford a Lawyer?

In 2017, 70 percent of low-income households in America had some kind of civil legal problem, ranging from divorce to a housing dispute, according to the nonprofit Legal Services Corporation. But in the civil system, there is no guaranteed right to representation. That means families living near the poverty line handle the vast majority of those cases — 86 percent — with little or no professional legal help to guide them.

This civil legal system “crisis”, as advocates call it, has sent states scrambling for solutions. Washington has taken the