[zepto]

He does have a right to a counsel in a civil suit, just not a court appointed one.

[TimTheTinker]

Right, no law can prohibit use of legal counsel (pro-bono or paid by the client) in any context.

... well, any context involving American citizens under American court jurisdiction. (Cases involving incidents in the armed forces comes to mind as an exception -- that's under a separate armed forces court jurisdiction, where the rules are different. No asking to speak to legal counsel when your Sergeant yells "go!" :-) )

[dpark]

You generally don't have a right to a court-appointed counsel in a criminal case, either. That only applies if you cannot afford one.

Although the parent was referring to the fact that you have a right to have an attorney present for any police questioning. But again, that does not apply here, since the police presumably weren't the ones doing the questioning.

[glibgil]

Yep and when confronted by Tesla he had the opportunity to say, "let's talk about this later"

[ams6110]

And the burden of proof is lower.