If you’re poor in Oregon and charged with a crime, the state will provide you a lawyer. If, however, you’re poor and you need a lawyer because your spouse abuses you, you’re most likely to be on your own.

That’s because, while state and federal constitutions guarantee citizens equal access — lawyers — in criminal courts, they’ve yet to do so in civil ones. It makes sense on one level. A criminal faces a jail term and resulting loss of liberty; an abused spouse does not.

That’s where legal aid comes in. Four nonprofit law corporations give Oregon’s poor equal access to civil courts, but they’re all based west of the Cascades.

While Legal Aid Services of Oregon has offices in Bend, Pendleton and Klamath Falls, and the Oregon Law Center has an office in Ontario, many Eastern Oregonians can look forward to a one-way drive of 130 miles or more to find free legal services.

It’s one of the reasons legal aid currently is able to fill only about 15 percent of the demand for its services.

Meanwhile, most — 80 percent — of the work legal aid does is for women, many with children. About half of those are the victims of abuse. Lawyers provide help with critical needs, including housing, food and medical care.

The system is financed by a patchwork of sources and is strapped for cash. The Oregon Bar Association and others hope to add to the mix this year by assigning some unclaimed money from class-action lawsuits to legal aid. Most states already do just that, but Oregon lawmakers defeated a proposal to do so last year.

We opposed last year’s measure because it would have applied to lawsuits that already have been filed and settled. It’s unfair, it seems to us, to change the rules midstream, which last year’s bill would have done.

If similar measures this year apply only to suits going forward, however, it makes sense to approve one.

Legal aid is a critical piece of the Oregon justice system, and while this change alone can not assure a strong financial future, it will help.