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N.Y. FCT Law § 261

This is the official text of N.Y. FCT Law § 261, part of New York’s FCT Law — part of the compiled statutory law of New York, published by the state as "FCT Law." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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Legislative findings and purpose

Official statutory text

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

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.