October 5, 2022 by Communications
What kinds of issues can legal aid help me with?
Topic
Community Education
Lone Star Legal Aid is one of three legal aid providers in Texas, helping low-income Texans face civil legal issues that create additional barriers to their well-being. We have many units dedicated to different client issues. Here is an exhaustive list of the free services we offer to clients who qualify.
If you have been affected by unfair selling practices and/or business regulations, we can help with:
- Fraud or deceptive trade practices
- Warranties or breaches of contract
- Debt collection abuses and collection defense
- Unlawful repossessions
- Rent-to-own abuses
- Bankruptcy
- Predatory lending
- Public utility access
- Student financial aid program abuses and collection defense
- Contracts and warranties
- Home repair
- Lemon law
If you need financial or public assistance, we can help with:
- Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF)
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the program formerly known as Food Stamps
- Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
- Social Security
- County Indigent Healthcare
- Unemployment Insurance
- Medicare/Medicaid
- Discrimination in government programs for race, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, disability, sexual orientation, or family size
If you are a United States military veteran, dependent of a veteran, or surviving spouse of a veteran, we can help with veteran-specific issues like:
- Discharge upgrades
- Character of discharge review
- Service connected disability
- Non-service connected pension
- Survivor’s benefits
- Education benefits (GI Bill and Hazelwood Act)
If you are a crime survivor*, we can help with:
- Divorce, custody, and adoption
- Employment law
- Debt collection and bankruptcy
- Foreclosure and eviction
- Financial assistance and public benefits access
- Rights enforcement
- Tax issues
- Sealing or expunging a criminal record
- Personal safety at home, work, or school
- Applying for a protective order
- Filing for divorce or custody of your children
- Transferring to a different school
- Keeping medical, mental health, and education records private
- Terminating a lease or fighting an eviction
- Applying for unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid, or Social Security disability
- Applying for crime victim compensation
- Fighting payday loans, hospital bills, or other creditors
- Fighting identity theft
*Includes: human trafficking, domestic violence, homicide, emotional abuse, robbery, physical abuse, assault, identity theft, neglect, elder abuse, kidnapping, stalking, bullying, arson, sexual abuse, burglary, fraud, theft, cyber crimes, and vandalism.
If you are facing changes to your family structure or identity, we can help with:
- Divorce / Annulment
- Custody / Visitation
- Child and spousal support
- Family Violence
- Child Abuse
- Guardianship (adult and child)
- Name Change
- Paternity
- Parental Rights Termination Defense
- Adoption
- Emancipation
If you are facing housing instability, we can help with:
- Eviction defense
- Foreclosure prevention
- Discrimination in affordable housing
- Unsafe affordable housing
- Property taxes
- Property owner association disputes
- Title clearing problems
- Issues with mortgage companies
If you are facing a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), we can help with:
- Audits
- Appeals
- Collection matters
- Federal tax litigation
If you are facing issues in your neighborhood, including environmental hazards, we can help with:
- Municipal services
- Public utilities
- Public information
- Public comments
- Code enforcement
If you have survived a major natural disaster*, we can help with:
- Insurance claims for medical bills, loss of property, and loss of life
- New wills, powers of attorney, and other legal papers lost during the disaster
- Home-repair contracts and contractors
- Problems with landlords
- Proof of home ownership
- FEMA appeals
*We can help residents in our service area, even those who have relocated to our service area, in the aftermath of a major natural disaster outside of our service area.
If you are facing employment issues, we can help with:
- Workplace safety issues
- Wage claims
- Unlawful termination
- WARN Act claims
- Discrimination for race, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, disability, sexual orientation, or family size and
- Fair Labor Standards Act rights enforcement
If you are facing legal issues due to a physical injury or medical/psychological condition, we can help with:
- Custody concerns
- Lack of health insurance
- Unsafe housing
- Insufficient income
- Food instability
If you are facing issues related to public education, we can help with:
- Discrimination for race, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, disability, sexual orientation, or family size
- Enforcement of Americans with Disabilities Act, Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act against public schools on behalf of children with disabilities
- Truancy, discipline, expulsion, and suspension issues related to the above
- Bilingual education program issues
- Civil rights in education
If you are over age 65*, we can help with:
- Protection orders
- Divorces
- Securing, challenging, limiting, or terminating guardianships
- Instituting and revoking powers of attorney
- Recovering assets
- Restoration of public benefits
- Creating trusts, evicting an abusive caregiver
- Modifying and voiding legal instruments
- Removal of social security representative payees for funds mismanagement and abuse of fiduciary duties
- Identity theft and debt collection
- Unlawful nursing home discharges
- Deceptive and unfair business practices
*Applies only to residents of the following Texas counties: Anderson, Angelina, Bowie, Camp, Cass, Cherokee, Gregg, Harrison, Henderson, Houston, Jasper, Marion, Nacogdoches, Newton, Tyler, Panola, Rains, Rusk, Sabine, San Augustine, Shelby, Smith, Upshur, Van Zandt and Wood.
If you have a past criminal conviction and face barriers to your successful reentry to society, we can help with:
- Obtaining driver’s licenses, birth certificates, and social security cards
- Administrative License Revocation (ALR) hearings
- Occupational license issues at the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulations
- Class C Misdemeanors, including some traffic tickets and other citations, where no jail time was associated, and the maximum fee was $500
- Accessing your criminal records
- Repairing inaccurate background checks
- Non-disclosures to seal criminal records
- Expungement to remove criminal records
- Truancy and school behavioral violations for at-risk youth
We can also help with:
- Incorporation of non-profit organizations
- License suspension / revocation
- Wills and Estates (End-of-life planning documents)
- Certain immigration issues
If you or someone you know needs free legal assistance, call 1-800-733-8394 or apply online.
Lone Star Legal Aid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit law firm focused on advocacy for low-income and underserved populations. Lone Star Legal Aid serves millions of people at 125% of federal poverty guidelines that reside in 72 counties in the eastern and Gulf Coast regions of Texas, and 4 counties of Southwest Arkansas. Lone Star Legal Aid focuses its resources on maintaining, enhancing, and protecting income and economic stability, preserving housing, improving outcomes for children, establishing and sustaining family safety and stability, health and well-being, and assisting populations with special vulnerabilities, like those with disabilities, or who are elderly, homeless, or have limited English language skills. To learn more about Lone Star Legal Aid, visit our website at www.lonestarlegal.org.
Media contact: media@lonestarlegal.org
