No Right To Appointed Counsel In Divorce

The Supreme Court of the State of Washington held that an indigent party to a dissolution proceeding has no right to appointed counsel paid for by the state. The wife in the divorce case was pro se; the husband had retained counsel. The husband, as one might expect, prevailed in the litigation. The court majority held that the rights at stake were not so fundamental as to require counsel at public expense.

A dissent takes a different view:

"The majority fails to appreciate the full extent of the liberty interest a parent 

has in the relationship with his or her child, and erroneously concludes that under 

the state constitution the right to counsel does not attach unless termination of the 

parent-child relationship is at stake and the State is a party to the action.  I would 

hold that an independent constitutional analysis applies in this context under the 

state due process clause, article I, section 3.  In accord with the principles 

enunciated in Luscier and Myricks, an indigent parent has a due process right to 

appointed counsel at public expense in residential placement proceedings 

involving child placement because a parent has a liberty interest in his or her 

children at stake, just as it is in termination proceedings."