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Family Court Act § 261 · Part 6. Counsel For Indigent Adults In Family Court Proceedings

Legislative findings and purpose

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — Law content up to date as of August 21, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)

§ 261. Legislative findings and purpose. Persons involved in certain family court proceedings may face the infringements of fundamental interests and rights, including the loss of a child's society and the possibility of criminal charges, and therefore have a constitutional right to counsel in such proceedings. Counsel is often indispensable to a practical realization of due process of law and may be helpful to the court in making reasoned determinations of fact and proper orders of disposition. The purpose of this part is to provide a means for implementing the right to assigned counsel for indigent persons in proceedings under this act.

Source of truth

Edition
Law content up to date as of August 21, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
Official file
https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/FCT261
Text hash
sha256 0c77922c00f71df8709299529d09a18ec4a84d560c2a6f6b15b5eb6482d36e70
Composed by
gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.