LAAC Board Member Mitch Kamin and David Lash write about AB 590 in the Daily Journal.

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Gideon's trumpet is sounding again.

This reference, of course, is to the Biblical Gideon, who ordered his small forces to attack the much larger enemy camp and, with trumpets blowing, created a cacophony that caused a stronger foe to tremble, and thus evened a previously lopsided battlefield. In modern times, the U.S. Supreme Court in Gideon v. Wainwright leveled the criminal justice battlefield, holding that the government must provide an attorney for free to indigent criminal defendants. As famously depicted in the book and film, Gideon's Trumpet, the Supreme Court's ruling ensured that poor people would not face government prosecutors, and risk losing their liberty, without counsel of their own.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger now has a chance to sound Gideon's trumpet once again in the name of justice and fairness. Sitting on his desk is A.B. 590, the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Pilot Program, (Michael Feuer - D. Los Angeles), named in honor of the man who launched legal services for the poor. If signed, this first of its kind measure will sound the trumpet for children, the poor, the elderly and the disabled by providing attorneys for civil litigants when fundamental human needs like housing, custody and physical safety are at stake in the legal process.

The reasons for this bill are simple. The world's greatest democracy acknowledges the system does not work for a criminal defendant who cannot afford a lawyer, and should likewise protect low-income parties in civil proceedings, where jail is not the end result, but where equally fundamental rights and needs are at stake. The time is long past due for the creation of a "civil Gideon."

Thankfully, most of us do not need a lawyer to see a doctor or keep our children safe in their homes. But the same is often not true for low-income Californians, who regularly need counsel to protect and obtain life's basic necessities. Without lawyers in civil cases, people suffer in ways that are unimaginable in a just society.

She was a single mother, her young child was sick. She could not afford medical care, the emergency room was daunting. The landlord wanted to charge her a higher rent, but had no legal basis for eviction. Still, hoping she would not find a lawyer, the landlord took her to court. Afraid for her child's health, not knowing where to turn, not understanding the papers or the consequences, she was overwhelmed ... and soon she was evicted. Homelessness was next. Her elderly neighbor had died in his car when he had no help and wrongly lost his apartment. She was terrified. Thankfully, another neighbor referred her to a local legal aid office. She got an attorney. The eviction was stopped. Her child's life was probably saved. The system worked.

Styled as a pilot project that would not begin until 2011, funding for A.B. 590 will come from previously approved small post-judgment court filings that in two years will be redirected to support this program. As a pilot project, it will be tested in just one or two counties with the goal of saving that single mom, her sick child and the elderly neighbor. Scheduled to sunset after six years, the measure calls for local legal services providers to partner with the courts and utilize pro bono attorneys from private practice.

The State Bar Act makes it the duty of every lawyer in California to provide pro bono legal services and financial support of non-profit legal organizations that provide free legal services to underserved communities. Taking up the cause of the defenseless is a lawyer's highest calling. A.B. 590 recognizes the unique power of the legal profession to act for the poor and the need for every lawyer to participate if justice is to be a reality. No other profession can do what the legal profession can do, no one else can be the cornerstone of democracy and provide access to the most responsive branch of our government.

Every year more than four million people appear in California courtrooms without a lawyer. As a result, most of them will lose their cases, whether the facts and law support them or not. Every day people become homeless simply because they have no access to a lawyer, breaking the promise of democracy simply for want of an attorney. The promise of "equal justice for all" is empty if there is no "equal access to justice" and there can be no equal access without access to an attorney.

In the 1960's, Sargent Shriver set out to do something about the access problems that plague the poor. He laid the foundation for a system in which equal access to justice without regard to income becomes a fundamental right in our democratic society. In California, Chief Justice Ronald M. George has been a champion of that fight. Former legal services attorney Michael Feuer has created a program they previously could only have dreamed about. A simple pilot project now can be created for six years to begin to correct a fundamental inequity that costs lives and money every day. Governor Schwarzenegger can turn that dream into reality. He can blow the trumpet and make it happen.

Mitchell A. Kamin is the immediate past president of the Legal Aid Association of California. David A. Lash is the managing counsel for Pro Bono and Public Interest Services at O’Melveny & Myers LLP (the opinions expressed are his alone).