What We Do
VLS offers the following services:
- Legal Advice Clinics: We hold free general legal advice and intake clinics on Monday and Wednesday evenings at local middle schools. We also offer specialty advice clinics for specific legal topics such as special education and HIV/AIDS. Attorneys, interpreters, and others volunteer their time at these clinics to give brief advice to people with civil legal problems. Many attendees are then referred to VLS for further legal assistance, depending on the merits of their case and income eligibility.
- Individual Representation: Volunteer attorneys represent individuals and their families in ways ranging from simple advocacy to courtroom litigation.
- Law Firm Partnerships: Thanks to longstanding partnerships, local law firms take a group of family law cases on a monthly rotation. Each firm handles cases involving divorce and child custody issues. Occasionally, firms will take a group of cases outside of family law. The number of cases each firm handles is based on the firm’s size.
- Assisted Pro Se Project: The assisted pro se clinics are available to clients with uncontested cases, such as a divorce in which the parties agree on child custody and/or where there is no property to be divided. In these clinics, attorney and paralegal volunteers assist clients in the completion of all necessary legal forms, providing the support they need to finish their own cases.
- Evening Uncontested Docket: We hold an evening uncontested docket on the first Thursday of each month for VLS clients whose cases need to be finalized in front of a judge and whose work schedules may not allow them to attend court during the day. Travis County District Judges, clerks, court reporters, and attorney volunteers donate their time to make the uncontested docket possible.
