SEATTLE (AP) - The Washington Supreme Court ruled Thursday that there is no right to legal representation in divorce cases.

The justices in Olympia issued a 7-2 decision in the case of Brenda King, who couldn't afford a lawyer at her divorce trial and lost primary custody of her children. Her husband was represented by counsel.

Brenda King argued that because the state requires people to go through complex proceedings in public court to obtain a divorce, it should provide them with lawyers if they can't afford one.

But the high court ruled that divorces are not initiated by the state, unlike criminal trials, and so the state is not responsible for providing attorneys. Still, in the majority opinion, Justice Charles Johnson noted that the Legislature may want to consider doing so.

"It may be that the Legislature should expend resources to address the complexity that often accompanies dissolution proceedings," Johnson wrote. "However, the decision to publicly fund actions other than those that are constitutionally mandated falls to the Legislature. Outside of that scenario, it is not for the judiciary to weigh competing claims to public resources."

Johnson also differentiated divorce proceedings from hearings that seek to deprive people of their parenting rights. In those hearings, lawyers are sometimes provided at public expense because rights could be deprived; in divorces, parenting rights are merely being balanced between the parties, not deprived.

In a strongly worded dissent, also signed by Tom Chambers, Justice Barbara Madsen agreed with King, and noted that it was a good thing lawyers had agreed to represent her for free during her appeal. King's emotions got in the way when she tried to represent herself, Madsen wrote, and it did her case harm.

"Ms. King's struggle to represent herself in this case demonstrates the legal hurdles that arise every day in courtrooms across Washington, showing the importance of counsel to a parent in a dissolution proceeding seeking to secure her fundamental right to parent her children," Madsen wrote. "The majority's decision does not begin to address the obstacles an indigent parent encounters when she is unrepresented by counsel, nor does it realistically assess the loss she faces."

The state bar association lamented the ruling.

"This case highlights the need to greatly expand access to civil legal services in Washington, particularly when basic human needs are at stake such as in child custody disputes," Stanley Bastian, the bar association's president, said in a written statement.