Maria Roumiantseva (she / her) serves as the Associate Coordinator of the Public Justice Center’s National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel (NCCRC). She joined the NCCRC in February 2020. The NCCRC works to establish the right to counsel for low-income individuals in civil cases involving basic human needs such as child custody, housing, and benefits.
Prior to joining NCCRC, Maria was a Staff Attorney for Legal Services of Central New York, Inc. (LSCNY), based primarily in Binghamton, New York. In that role, she provided direct legal services in a variety of civil practice areas, including eviction defense for income-eligible clients. Prior to that position, Maria was an Attorney for Children with the Legal Aid Society, Juvenile Rights Practice in Brooklyn, New York, for four years. In that role, she represented children involved with the child welfare system. Maria graduated from Montclair State University in 2010 and the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law in 2013. Maria is a licensed attorney in New York State and Maryland.
Phone: (410) 625-9409 x248
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John Pollock has been the Coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel (NCCRC) since 2009. He was the recipient of NLADA’s 2018 Innovations in Civil Justice Award. He is the author of a number of law review articles, including Appointment of Counsel for Civil Litigants: A Judicial Path to Ensuring the Fair and Ethical Administration of Justice, Court Review, Vol. 56 Issue 1 (2020), The Case Against Case-By-Case: Courts Identifying Categorical Rights to Counsel in Basic Human Needs Civil Cases, 61 Drake L.J. 763 (Spring 2013), and It’s Not Triage if the Patient Bleeds Out, 161 U. Penn. L.R. 40 (2012). Previously, he was the Enforcement Director at the Central Alabama Fair Housing Center, and before that was a fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center. He graduated from Northeastern University School of Law and from Wesleyan University.
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When a person’s basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving their home, income, health care, or children, a lawyer can help protect what matters most. But in the United States, there is no federal right to state-funded counsel in civil cases. While all states provide a right to counsel for some types of civil cases by either statute or court decision (or both), the laws are patchwork and incomplete. Consequently, 92 percent of the civil legal needs of low-income individuals go unmet, and half of those requests made to civil legal aid organizations are turned away due to limited resources.
At the same time, low-income individuals routinely face opponents (the government, landlords, banks, and so on) who are represented. Studies have shown that this disparity in representation leads to unbalanced outcomes, and that the presence of counsel dramatically improves a person’s chances for success while saving money for cities and states by avoiding negative outcomes, such as the use of homeless shelters, emergency medical care, unemployment, and foster care.
As the operator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel (NCCRC), the Public Justice Center supports efforts across the country to establish the right to a lawyer for low-income individuals in civil cases involving basic needs. The NCCRC provides significant technical, research, and writing support to over 300 coalition participants and 200 partners in 40 states, maintains the national clearinghouse of information on civil right to counsel, and engages in public advocacy and awareness throughout the country.
Visit the NCCRC website, civilrighttocounsel.org, for the latest about right to counsel developments from across the country.
Impact
The movement for a right to counsel in eviction cases has reached a seminal moment: New York City, San Francisco, Newark, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Boulder, Baltimore, Seattle, Louisville, Denver, Toledo, Minneapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans, Detroit, Jersey City, St. Louis, Washington State, Maryland, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Nebraska now guarantee tenants a lawyer when their housing is threatened, and NUMEROUS other cities and states have introduced bills to do the same. The NCCRC provided and continues to provide extensive support to these campaigns.
The Supreme Court of Ohio ruled that low-income parents have a right to an attorney in involuntary adoption cases under the Equal Protection Clauses of the federal and state constitutions.
The NCCRC has a regular presence in the national media. NCCRC Coordinator John Pollock co-authored an op-ed in Newsweek about the necessary federal, state, and local response to the eviction crisis, and the NCCRC was featured in right to counsel stories in The Appeal and Law360 as well as in eviction stories in the Wall Street Journal, Salon, NPR, and Washington Post.
NOTE: The NCCRC cannot assist individuals with representation, legal advice, or attorney referrals. Therefore, we do not respond to individual requests for assistance. Please contact the legal aid organization in your state or your state’s attorney referral program.
