Ready to take your first guardianship case but not sure where to start? This practical, start-to-finish session walks attorneys through filing an uncontested guardianship of the person in Texas. Designed for newer practitioners this training breaks down each stage of the process, from client intake and evaluating alternatives to the hearing and post-appointment reporting requirements.
Participants will learn how to properly assess standing, obtain and review a Physician’s Certificate of Medical Examination (PCME), draft the application, meet service and notice requirements, work effectively with court-appointed counsel, and prepare for a smooth uncontested hearing. The session will also cover post-hearing filings and annual reporting obligations to ensure ongoing compliance.
This course emphasizes a least-restrictive, person-centered approach and practical strategies to avoid common mistakes that delay appointments or create compliance issues.
Attendees will leave with a clear roadmap, practical tools, and confidence to file their first guardianship case.
Disaster Benefits Team Manager, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid
Brittanny P. Gomez is the Disaster Benefits Team Manager at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and represents low income individuals affected by disasters. Brittanny is a Vice Director of the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Disaster Legal Services Team and has been recognized... Read More →
Hannah Dyal is an Equal Justice Works Disaster Resilience Program Fellow at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. She recently completed her first Equal Justice Works fellowship on the Disaster Recovery Legal Corps, the first disaster corps of its kind. Hannah has been working in disaster recovery... Read More →
Wednesday September 2, 2026 1:00pm - 2:00pm CDT Classroom 203
Legal Aid organizations have limited staff and funding to provide probate representation, making the justice gap even wider in this practice area. Additionally, there are few options for pro se representation in probate. Understanding the Texas Estates Code as well as how to practice probate law will inform legal aid attorneys of ways to provide advice or support pro bono attorneys in assisted pro se cases as well as representation.
Directing Attorney - Pro Bono, Lone Star Legal Aid
I am the Directing Attorney for Pro bono. I love talking all things pro bono, but you will often find me talking about marketing and recruitment. I have been with Lone Star Legal Aid since December 2019. Prior to that, I was the Pro Bono & Outreach Director and staff attorney... Read More →
The VA Fiduciary Program and VA guardianship rules (particularly the new VA-DOJ framework announced in March 2026) both address support for vulnerable veterans who lack capacity to manage aspects of their lives, but they operate in distinct yet potentially overlapping ways. The VA Fiduciary Program is a federal, VA-specific mechanism focused narrowly on financial management. VA determines if a veteran (due to injury, disease, age, or minority) cannot manage their VA benefits. The new VA guardianship rules, however, allow for broader decision-making over a veteran, which can include health care decisions, living arrangements, and a veteran’s overall personal welfare. Historically, VA has limited involvement here, but the recent VA-DOJ Memorandum of Understanding (MOU, March 2026) enables VA attorneys (appointed as special assistant U.S. attorneys by DOJ) to initiate and participate in state court proceedings to seek guardianship for certain unrepresented veterans—especially those unable to make health care decisions, lacking family/legal support, and needing it for post-acute care transitions (including some homeless or at-risk veterans in VA facilities). Both target impaired or incapacitated veterans to protect their interests and well-being. Attorneys should be prepared to advocate for veterans in either situation.
Tag along for an interactive session designed for advocates with a baseline understanding of the fundamentals of probate practice who are looking to move beyond the basics, develop their skills, and take more complex cases.
This session will present participants with complex, uncommon, and contentious issues that arise during the probate process and provide practical solutions to combat them. Toward the end of the session, participants will have the opportunity to share legal issues they’ve encountered in probate practice and provide insight into what worked to resolve them.
By the end of the session, participants will be better equipped to navigate their next probate case and avoid the feeling of overwhelm that comes with having a not so easy peasy probate issue.
Disaster Benefits Team Manager, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid
Brittanny P. Gomez is the Disaster Benefits Team Manager at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and represents low income individuals affected by disasters. Brittanny is a Vice Director of the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Disaster Legal Services Team and has been recognized... Read More →
Hannah Dyal is an Equal Justice Works Disaster Resilience Program Fellow at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. She recently completed her first Equal Justice Works fellowship on the Disaster Recovery Legal Corps, the first disaster corps of its kind. Hannah has been working in disaster recovery... Read More →
Karis Adams is a Staff Attorney at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), where she focuses primarily on Estate Planning and Probate, while also practicing in the area of Environmental Justice. Karis is passionate about preventing heirs' property issues and expanding access to estate planning through... Read More →
Thursday September 3, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am CDT Classroom 203
Legal aid providers across Texas are increasingly supporting families facing the risk of sudden separation due to immigration enforcement. This session provides a practical, replicable model for designing and executing family preparedness clinics that utilize volunteer attorneys to draft powers of attorney for the care of children and management of personal affairs. Participants will learn how to structure clinics, train and supervise volunteers, ensure ethical and legal compliance, and deliver trauma-informed, culturally competent services at scale. Attendees will leave with concrete tools, workflows, and strategies they can implement in their own organizations.
This panel will walk attorneys through the practical realities of preparing for litigation in complex and contested guardianship cases. Panelists will cover case assessment, discovery strategies, working with confidential medical records, and managing competing interests among family members.The session will also feature a candid review of a case that settled on the eve of trial, examining what drove the litigation forward, and the lessons learned that can be applied in future cases.
Hannah Dyal is an Equal Justice Works Disaster Resilience Program Fellow at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid. She recently completed her first Equal Justice Works fellowship on the Disaster Recovery Legal Corps, the first disaster corps of its kind. Hannah has been working in disaster recovery... Read More →
Pablo Javier Almaguer is the Senior Attorney Fellow at Texas Immigration Law Council (“TxILC), where he is overseeing the newly created Medical Legal Partnership between Texas A&M Law School and Doctors Hospital at Renaissance. TxILC’s core values center on building broad coalitions... Read More →
The access to justice crisis in Texas is well-documented, but solutions at scale have been elusive. Community justice workers (CJWs), non-lawyer legal advocates who expand legal access in ways attorneys cannot alone, represent one of the most promising responses to the problem. In Texas, this model is already at work, and an anticipated licensure framework could soon expand what non-lawyer advocates are authorized to do. This session uses the Economic Justice Initiative (EJI), with 25+ CJWs and attorneys across 10 legal service partners, as a concrete case study in what building and running a CJW program requires. Presenters will share what the work has revealed about how CJWs make an impact, what a structured learning approach for CJWs looks like, how partner and community collaboration shapes the model, and what implementation has taught us about responsible program design in Texas.
Economic Justice Director, Texas Immigration Law Council
Cristian is the Economic Justice Director at Texas Immigration Law Council where he leads the design and implementation of a program to expand access to civil legal services for low-income Texans through innovation, including Community Justice workers. He is doing this through standing... Read More →
Poverty in Texas extends far beyond low-income statistics. It is fundamentally an infrastructure problem where transportation gaps, broadband deserts, wireless coverage limitations, and language access barriers compound each other to create complete service inaccessibility.
This session reveals how these barriers compound to create complete legal service inaccessibility, even when programs like legal aid exist.
Participants will leave with a framework for analyzing how infrastructure barriers affect their own programs' unmet need, data collection strategies to quantify geographic service gaps, and advocacy strategies for technology solutions that would equalize access to justice.
Director of Case Management System Training, Lone Star Legal Aid
I'm a native of East Texas. I've worked for Lone Star Legal Aid for 25 years, with the last 20 years being the trainer for our case management systems. I also facilitate our Brown Bag Trainings and assist with compliance.
Friday September 4, 2026 9:00am - 10:00am CDT Classroom 203
Too many Texans are left to navigate legal challenges without the support they need. The Community Justice Workers of Texas (CJW) Program addresses this gap by training and empowering trusted individuals who are already working or volunteering within Community Partner Organizations (CPOs). These community members help share vital legal information and connect people to appropriate resources and services.
This session will highlight the collaborative efforts of Disability Rights Texas, Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas, Lone Star Legal Aid, Texas Legal Services Center, and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid in tackling the statewide justice gap for low-income Texans. While the program has already achieved meaningful progress, it continues to grow, with the long-term goal of establishing CJWs across Texas to meet the increasing demand for accessible legal support.
John Grieger has 34 years of bankruptcy law experience. A graduate of Northwestern University (BA-Spanish) and the University of San Diego School of Law, John returned to his native Chicago after law school and worked as a staff attorney for the Chapter 13 Trustee. After that... Read More →
A staple in the toy industry is the building blocks known as LEGO – designed to connect, build, and bring structures to life through creativity and ingenuity. Similarly, this session will teach legal advocates how to be a "LEGO", using lessons learned from serving communities in a legal desert to demonstrate practical, adaptable strategies used by TxILC’s Economic Justice Initiative (EJI) fellows for connecting clients to both legal and non-legal resources to bridge the access to justice gap through their work in family law and domestic violence in rural areas. With limited resources and an expansive area to cover, the ultimate question that EJI and the fellows aim to address is how do we best serve our clients with their legal and non-legal needs in a meaningful and intentional way, extending client impact past their case. “What Legal Deserts Teach Us About Building Community Partnerships” will discuss how the community justice worker (non-attorney advocates) framework is being used to address family law and domestic violence cases in rural communities, and teach legal advocates in the session, through hands-on and collaborative activities, strategies on how to identify imminent needs in the community, how to identify key partners that can help address those needs, and how to facilitate sustainable yet flexible support systems specific to each community for attendees to take with them. The approaches shared are designed to be replicated across a range of settings where advocates face challenges in linking clients to meaningful support.
EJI Legal Access Fellow, Texas Immigration Law Council
Johana Soileau is a graduate of UT Austin with her Bachelor of Arts in Government and Sociology. She has spent many years dedicated to service and empowerment of underrepresented communities through non-profit work, education, mentoring, and now the legal field. Her philosophy is... Read More →
Lisa Davila Lang is a first-generation attorney. She began her professional journey in healthcare, earning her Certificate in Vocational Nursing from Western Texas College in 1995, and later her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from West Texas A&M University in 2014. Lisa pursued her... Read More →
Friday September 4, 2026 11:30am - 12:30pm CDT Classroom 203
