Links to Other Helpful Sites

This website is a project of the Tennessee Supreme Court.

The Tennessee Supreme Court hopes that everyone will get help from a lawyer for their legal questions. The best thing you can do if you have a legal problem is to talk with a lawyer. But the Court realizes that sometimes people cannot get help from a lawyer because they cannot afford one or they decide they want to represent themselves.  Because of this, the Court created www.justiceforalltn.com. Most of the information on the website is for people who cannot afford a lawyer and need legal help in civil cases (cases that do not have to do with a crime). You can use the website to find a lawyer to help you with all or part of your case, to find an agency to help you with your legal problems, or find information to help you understand what you need to do to represent yourself.

A number of agencies in Tennessee provide legal help for low-income persons. The first step to finding help is to call the legal aid program in your area. The legal aid programs have lawyers who work with citizens. Mostly, legal aid helps people who have low income. Legal aid will sometimes help people who are not low-income, but are abused or over age 60.

You can locate the legal aid office in your area by going to the Directory on this website. You may also go directly to the website of the legal aid programs in Tennessee. The following programs receive federal funding through the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) and handle legal issues within their geographic service areas:

• Legal Aid of East Tennessee: www.laet.org
• Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands: www.las.org
• West Tennessee Legal Services: www.wtls.org
• Memphis Area Legal Services: www.malsi.org

OnlineTNJustice is a joint project of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services and the Tennessee Bar Association. Special thanks to Microsoft, Dell, and to the Tennessee Supreme Court’s Access to Justice Commission for their critical support of this project. These entities share the goal of increasing access to legal advice to those who cannot afford it.

The system screens clients for eligibility and, if qualified, allows them to post a question to a private messaging system. The questions are answered by private attorneys volunteering their time. A OnlineTNJustice client has the ability to check the system for answers at any time. Only the name of the client is shared with the volunteer attorney assisting them. All other information is anonymous to insure complete privacy.

Southeast Tennessee Legal Services (STLS) is a Project of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc. STLS is a public interest law firm seeking justice and opportunity for Tennesseans. STLS operates as a nonprofit legal organization receiving private contributions as well as federal and  state funds. STLS gives advice and also may file lawsuits in state and federal courts. Their programs are for the victims of domestic violence and some consumer cases.

Through their In-Person Services, they represent clients in 11 Tennessee counties: Hamilton, Bledsoe, Bradley, Marion, McMinn, Meigs, Monroe, Polk, Rhea and Sequatchie Counties. These include divorces and orders of protection in Hamilton County and orders of protection in the other counties.

The Tennessee Bar Foundation is an organization of attorneys from across the state, active since 1982. The Foundation has a three-fold purpose. First, the purpose is to honor attorneys who have distinguished themselves in the profession by electing them to membership as "Fellows;" second, to use the contributions of these Fellows to support selected, law-related public interest projects; and, lastly, to administer Tennessee's IOLTA (Interest On Lawyers' Trust Accounts) program.