San Francisco Superior Court is charged with ensuring that indigent parents facing allegations of abuse or neglect, and minor children who may have been harmed, receive the highest-quality representation from court-appointed counsel. Since the 1970s, attorneys from the The Bar Association of San Francisco’s Dependency Representation Program (DRP) have been appointed by the court from panels administrated by the bar association’s Lawyer Referral and Information Service. BASF scrutinizes dependency attorney-applicant references and credentials. Qualified representation at the trial level actually saves considerable money in the long run for it avoids ineffective assistance of counsel claims and the expense of wrongful convictions.