Determining whether or not you will qualify for our assistance is a two step process. First, you must be financially eligible for our services. Second, your case must be one which falls within program priorities established by the board of directors.
Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas is funded from a variety of different sources with each funding source having its own financial eligibility criteria. Therefore you may qualify financially for one program but not another. Other exceptions may apply. In most situations, the family income must fall below 125% of the federal poverty guidelines. To assist you in determining whether or not you might qualify please refer to the guidelines below. As a general rule these would make you financially eligible but in some cases eligibility is based upon a slightly higher scale up to 200% of poverty. If your household far exceeds the 125% guidelines you can still apply and your application will be reviewed for any exceptions available. Or you can call the Texas State Bar referral service.
Our offices do not have the resources to represent everyone who needs our services. Because of this, we have to make decisions on which cases take priority. Each case will be given individual attention with the facts and circumstances being carefully considered. We believe every case is important to those needing our assistance and we will provide some measure of service to all applicants including advice, brief service and referrals to our volunteer attorney projects or other appropriate free or low cost resources. However, with 30,000 applications each year we must unfortunately make very difficult decisions to devote our limited resources to those most in need. The selection criteria for extended representation is based upon the available resources in each office.
125% OF THE POVERTY GUIDELINE
|
