Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) is a non-profit organization that provides free civil legal services to indigent residents of southwest Texas. As the leading provider of legal aid in Texas, TRLA provides services in 68 counties. Program headquarters are in Weslaco, in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, with branch offices located in Austin, El Paso, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Harlingen, Edinburg, Laredo, Sinton, and Victoria. TRLA also serves migrant and seasonal farm workers throughout the state of Texas and in six southern states served by the Southern Migrant Legal Services office in Nashville: Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana.
TRLA is funded in principal part by the federal Legal Services Corporation and the Texas Access to Justice Foundation. TRLA also receives smaller grants from a variety of federal, state and local agencies, including the United States Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Internal Revenue Service. Other funding comes from individual donations and grants from various foundations and corporations.
TRLA is the largest legal aid provider in Texas and the third largest provider in the nation. The combined funding allows TRLA’s attorneys to serve approximately 25,000 clients each year. However, over 2.6 million residents of southwest Texas are considered eligible for TRLA services — a ratio of almost 21,000 potential clients per lawyer.
The organization provides services in a broad variety of practice areas (39 in all) that address the range of problems confronting the low-income community, such as:
- economic self-sufficiency
- domestic violence
- fair housing
- children’s rights
- elder law
- disability rights
- public benefits
- consumer protection
- environmental justice
- displaced workers
- homelessness
Applicants for service should call our Telephone Access to Justice toll-free hotline at: 1-888-988-9996. For more information on Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, visit us on the web at www.trla.org.
