Right to counsel

Indigent parents have a right to counsel for all stages of abuse/neglect proceedings, pursuant to Ohio Rev. Code § 2151.352.

Ohio Rev. Code § 2151.353(B) (which governs abuse/neglect proceedings) clarifies that “[n]o order for permanent custody or temporary custody of a child or the placement of a child in a planned permanent living arrangement shall be made pursuant to this section unless … the summons served on the parents contains a full explanation of their right to be represented by counsel and to have counsel appointed pursuant to Chapter 120. of the Revised Code if they are indigent.”

In In re J.H., 2025 WL 1862320 (Ohio. App. 2025), an Ohio Court of Appeals held that while the statutory right to counsel might extend to emergency shelter care hearings, a parent who was denied appointed counsel was required to prove the denial was prejudicial and failed to do so.  The court relied on the fact that the parent had consented to shelter care [N.B. the parent might not have done so had she had counsel], that emergency hearings are informal and must be held quickly, that the parent hadn’t raised the lack of appointed counsel in the whole subsequent year that she was represented by appointed counsel, and that an emergency shelter care order “is in no sense dispositive; it is interlocutory in nature, limited in scope and purpose, and temporary in duration. It responds to an emergency—the immediate physical needs of the child—until the court can fully inquire into the facts and decide what is best for the child. A shelter care order is no more than this.”  The court also pointed out that the child was ultimately adjudicated dependent at hearing where the parent had counsel.