By Rita Fry, Public Defender of Cook County, Illinois. "Forty years have passed since the United States Supreme Court’s landmark right-to-counsel opinion in Gideon v. Wainwright . Today, states and localities aim to fulfill these obligations through state or local public defender organizations, appointed counsel, or through a contracting process . After four decades, however, it is time to assess how well our justice system has performed to meet the promise of Gideon." (This article appeared as the “Message to Members” in NLADA’s Cornerstone, Volume 24, Number 4; Winter 2002-2003)