Maine’s highest court has ruled that adults subjected to guardianship and conservatorship cases have a right to effective legal representation.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court reached its decision while considering a Cumberland County man’s 2024 appeal challenging a probate judge’s decision not to terminate his guardianship.

The man, identified in court records by the initial R., argued that he received inadequate assistance from his first attorney, who had not ordered him an independent psychological evaluation.

The supreme court ultimately struck down R.’s appeal, finding that his guardianship is justified, but the justices took his case as an opportunity to “expressly recognize for the first time” that he and others have a right to adequate legal representation because of the liberty interests at stake.

Attorney Carl Woock, who represented the man on appeal, told a reporter Wednesday he thought the court’s decision was important in Maine because of its aging population.

“Protecting the liberty interests of individuals who are subject to these proceedings is critical,” Woock said.

The ruling comes less than two years after advocates discovered that most adults in conservatorship and guardianship cases did not have a lawyer.

Disability Rights Maine analyzed three years of probate court data and published a report in 2024, finding that 75% of adults were appointed guardians and conservators without having been given a lawyer.

In guardianship cases, a judge must determine that a person is unable to make decisions on their own. Guardians can include private individuals, like a relative; or the state, through its Department of Health and Human Services. Conservators, similarly, are appointed when a court has determined that someone is unable to make decisions about their property.

In R.’s case, a probate judge agreed to appoint DHHS as his guardian in September 2022, and later as his conservator. R. was living in an assisted living facility, according to court records, and had been diagnosed with moderate vascular dementia and had suffered several strokes.

When R. filed a petition challenging his guardianship two years later, court records state that he was unhappy in his assisted living facility and wanted to leave. A judge denied his request, finding that R “generally does not have insight into his own limitations” due to cognitive limitations that made him easy to exploit.

The high court upheld all of this, despite R.’s complaint that his initial attorney failed to order him an evaluation. The court determined that even if the evaluation had been completed, it would not have overcome other evidence in the case.

But, the court continued, R. was correct that he had a right to effective representation.

“Like defendants in criminal matters, individuals subject to guardianship and conservatorship proceedings face substantial deprivations of liberty, and we see no reason to deviate from the familiar standard we use in similarly weighty contexts,” wrote Associate Justice Julia Lipez, who penned the court’s unanimous decision.

Yet unlike criminal and child protective cases, where parents are also entitled to an attorney, adults in conservatorship and guardianship proceedings have to meet certain conditions to qualify for court-appointed counsel. Those conditions include times when someone has contested their guardianship, or instances when a judge is concerned that a person needs help understanding legal proceedings.

Guardianship and conservatorship cases are also overseen by probate courts, which are county-run and employ part-time, elected judges — unlike the state court system. Lauren Wille, director of Disability Rights Maine, said there’s likely a disparity in how often judges agree to appoint an attorney in these cases.

“I would put forth that anytime someone is seeking to take control over another person’s life, that person should have an attorney,” Wille said.

The high court also laid out its expectations for what makes an attorney’s representation effective, and potential remedies the probate court can offer when an attorney isn’t meeting the mark.

Wille said on Wednesday that attorneys are critical to helping people understand what it means to be placed under a guardianship or conservatorship, and that they can often help come to a resolution that’s less restrictive and more appropriate.