David J. Dreyer: Are we ignoring an obvious truth about legal representation?

“[A]ny person haled into court who is too poor to hire a lawyer cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him. This seems to us to be an obvious truth.”

—Justice Hugo Black, Gideon v. Wainwright

Clarence Earl Gideon’s hand-written application for writ of certiorari was fortunately sufficient enough to obtain equal access to the legal system in 1963.

Sixty-two years later, advocates still seek sufficient resources to ensure due process for indigent criminal defendants. But what about poor Americans who face everyday civil legal problems, like disability, housing issues, medical bills, family controversies?

They need access to advice and representation, and a courtroom counselor when necessary.

Is due process any less of a need when a family faces eviction than when a criminal defendant faces criminal charges? The legal profession has been trying to answer that question for about 100 years. 

The menacing problem of providing meaningful equal access to justice is perplexing to judges and lawyers because there is no “civil Gideon.” Unmet indigent legal needs have been estimated or documented in the millions since the early 20th century.

That need has never been shown to abate. By the year 2000, most studies consistently found around 80% of low-income legal needs went unaddressed. In 2022, the Legal Service Corporation’s most recent benchmark study still shows less than 8% of low-income legal needs are met.

Similarly, the 2023 American Bar Association Profile on the Legal Profession found less than three civil legal aid lawyers for every 10,000 poor persons.

In past years, it has cited at least seven state studies finding “only a very small percentage of the legal problems experienced by low-income people (typically one in five or less) [are] addressed with the assistance of a private or legal aid lawyer.”

In 2016, the National Center for State Courts released state trial courts data showing three out of four civil cases have at least one unrepresented party. That figure was recently confirmed in April 2025 by the Conference of Chief Justices as unchanged—and it reiterated that in some high-volume dockets such as housing, family law, and debt collection, 80 to 90 percent of cases have at least one party without a lawyer.

The plethora of research showing unmet indigent legal needs is daunting and shows an alarmingly high amount of unprovided access to the civil legal system for poor Americans.

In Indiana, the most recent studies show over 80% of low-income Hoosiers who have a legal problem have no access to a lawyer. 

So, maybe one person without a lawyer is one thing, but what about millions of people every year?

Our Indiana Supreme Court faced these challenges in the mid-1990s when it created the Indiana Pro Bono Commission and local pro bono districts.

More lawyers volunteered to do pro bono work, more funds were generated through IOLTA, and more needy litigants were helped.

But in Indiana, like everywhere else, aggressive pro bono planning and heroic efforts cannot match the multitude of unrepresented people whose bank accounts do not allow paid access to the legal system.

Over the years, renewed work has started to combine resources and re-energize the search for much-needed solutions.

The Coalition for Court Access studies and supports new directions to stay in the vanguard of thinking and planning with the rest of the country. But without a civil right to counsel, the level of unrepresented citizens in Indiana and other states is simply astonishing. 

We as lawyers and judges are the stewards of the American ideal of justice. We cannot afford, and must not abide, a partial system for just some and not all.

As we begin the second century of the United States legal profession, we must dedicate ourselves or suffer long-warned consequences.

Legal assistance, according to Theodore Roosevelt, was a “bulwark against . . . violent revolution.”

“Injustice,” said Reginald Heber Smith, “leads directly to contempt for law, disloyalty to the government, and plants the seeds of anarchy.”  

So, it is not just charity, but good government that commits us to providing equal access to all Americans.

In Indiana alone, there are more than 15,000 attorneys. If everyone provides 50 hours of pro bono work a year (Rule 6.1 of the Rules of Professional Conduct), every needy Hoosier may have a modicum of access to legal advice and representation. And that may continue to preserve the country that our Founding Fathers (and Mothers) dreamed about.•

Senior Judge David J. Dreyer presided as a judge of the Marion Superior Court from 1997-2020. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Notre Dame Law School and a former board member of the Indiana Judges Association.

(Editor’s note: This column was originally published in December 2016 and has been updated by the author for use again due to its continued relevance.)