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Cal. WIC § 5521

This is the official text of Cal. WIC § 5521, part of California’s Welfare and Institutions Code — governs public social services, juvenile justice, and mental health/developmental disability services.

Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.

Official statutory text

It is the intent of the Legislature that legal representation regarding changes in client legal status or conditions and other areas covered by statute providing for local public defender or court-appointed attorney representation, shall remain the responsibility of local agencies, in particular the county public defender. County patients’ rights advocates shall not duplicate, replace, or conflict with these existing or mandated local legal representations. This section shall not be construed to prevent maximum cooperation between legal representatives and providers of advocacy services.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.