Veterans and military consumers face unique vulnerabilities that demand robust protection to honor their service and safeguard their well-being. Many have earned hard-earned benefits through sacrifice, yet they are disproportionately targeted by financial exploitation, scams, and fraud—often due to steady VA or military income streams, personal information tied to service, and challenges like age, disability, trauma, or isolation. Learn about key threats to veterans and servicemembers and what can be done to safeguard them.
Title IX is often viewed through a compliance lens, but for many students, it functions as a critical access-to-justice framework impacting safety, educational access, and long-term stability across both K–12 and higher education settings.
This session provides a practical overview of Title IX under the 2020 regulations, including the role of the Title IX Coordinator, reporting and response obligations, supportive measures, and intersections with the Clery Act. Presenters will examine how institutional policies and processes affect vulnerable and underserved student populations, particularly those experiencing overlapping challenges such as housing insecurity and intimate partner violence.
The session will also explore prevention as an early intervention strategy and provide an overview of the hearing and advisor process, including due process protections and common barriers students face when navigating institutional systems. In addition, the session will address how Title IX intersects with broader civil rights frameworks, including Title VI, and the implications for case classification, reporting pathways, and institutional response.
Through a multidisciplinary lens, this session connects compliance requirements to real-world advocacy, equipping attendees with actionable insight to better support clients interacting with school-based Title IX systems.
This session is particularly relevant for attorneys and advocates representing students in K–12 and higher education systems or working with survivors of gender-based violence.
Every rural community deserves a legal system that is both high-functioning and well-resourced. But lawyer scarcity across much of Texas makes such systems aspirational. This session will discuss solutions to the problem of rural legal deserts: Programs that have supported rural doctors for decades can be models for recruiting rural lawyers; Lawyers' educational, licensing, and practice structures can be updated and tailored to rural needs; and courts can modernize their practices. Learn about recent innovations and successes in these areas, and share your own approaches to rural lawyer recruitment.
Senior Staff Attorney, Dedman School of Law, Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center
Camilla Hsu joined the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center as a senior policy attorney in September 2024. Her work focuses on litigation related to Due Process and the Sixth Amendment Right to Counsel and supporting the Center’s mission of advocating for innovative criminal legal... Read More →
Medical-legal partnerships (MLPs) are designed to address legal problems before they become health-harming, yet their effectiveness often depends on the presence of Community Justice Workers (CJWs) as core members of the care team. This session will explore how CJWs, or non-attorney advocates, may strengthen MLPs by serving as trusted, community-based supports who help patients understand legal information, provide holistic navigation, and support accessible engagement with legal services. Presenters will discuss the potential role of CJWs within healthcare settings, how that role differs from attorneys and traditional support staff, and what considerations matter when integrating CJWs into an MLP model. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of where CJWs may add value, what guardrails are needed, and how this approach could support more effective and accessible service delivery.
Susan Soto is a licensed attorney with 15 years of experience in civil litigation. Prior to earning her law license, Susan was a teacher and principal in Texas public schools for almost 20 years. She has devoted her entire professional life to serving vulnerable communities and... Read More →
This presentation will focus on the transition from the child to adult disability standard, preserving social security benefits for youth turning 18, and a discussion on common issues and practical strategies such as early preparation, strong medical evidence, and clear documentation of work limitations.
The Houston Volunteer Lawyers/AccessHealth Medical-Legal Partnership demonstrates that effective healthcare and legal aid solutions emerge through collaboration. Beyond embedding legal services in clinical settings, this MLP has built strategic partnerships with community-based organizations, advocacy groups, businesses, government leaders, and local attorneys, including founding a pro bono legal network in Fort Bend County. These partnerships create a comprehensive safety net and expand capacity to serve patients through direct pro bono legal representation. This breakout session examines how partnerships strengthen MLPs by reviewing current research on inter-organizational collaboration, sharing examples of successful partnership models, and guiding attendees through an interactive exercise to apply these strategies to their own programs and communities.
Susan Soto is a licensed attorney with 15 years of experience in civil litigation. Prior to earning her law license, Susan was a teacher and principal in Texas public schools for almost 20 years. She has devoted her entire professional life to serving vulnerable communities and... Read More →
The Medicaid Estate Recovery Program seeks to recover the costs of long-term medical care after a Medicaid recipient passes away. Low-resource individuals who qualify for Medicaid worry that their children will continue the cycle of poverty and be left without the family home.
This session is based on a project in which presenters have helped community members understand MERP and take steps to protect intergenerational assets before and after a loved one’s death. Presenters will discuss the disproportionate impact MERP can have on low-income and immigrant communities, the role estate planning can play in preventing avoidable loss, and how community justice workers and other trusted non-attorney advocates can help deliver critical legal information in accessible ways. Attendees will leave with a stronger understanding of the problem, the outreach and legal education strategies being used in response, and how similar approaches might be adapted in other settings.
This session discusses the Medicaid Estate Recovery Program (MERP), how it works, and how low-resource families can protect the family home with low-cost probate alternatives.
Selma Lara is an attorney fellow at Texas Immigration Law Council as part of the Economic Justice Initiative. Her project revolves around estate planning, title clearing, and asset preservation for indigent individuals. As the first in her family to attend college, she graduated cum... Read More →
Many low-income Texans—to say nothing of nonlawyers in general, regardless of their income level—face reading comprehension barriers that prevent them from fully accessing the civil justice system. TexasLawHelp is often the first place that people land when they’re trying to understand their legal matter. While Beacon Law tries to mitigate the potentially harmful effects the legal system can have on unhoused and indigent clients, their resources—like the resources of all legal aids—are limited. Beacon Law and TexasLawHelp come from slightly different places in legal aid, but both have a lot to share about making legal information accessible.
Explaining complex legal matters issues to legal aid clients presents a challenge. Many U.S. adults read at or below a 6th-grade level, and poverty is associated with lower literacy rates. Legal aid organizations must meet clients where they are—without watering content down to the point of inaccuracy or creating a process that’s too overwhelming for pro se litigants to proceed. The stressors that our populations face further complicate their ability to understand complex legal issues.
This presentation will explore ethical considerations and risks, and offer tools, best practices, and pointers for explaining legal concepts in clear, simple language in a way that empowers and educates. By the end of this session, participants will have a better understanding of the importance of plain language in poverty law, along with the legal and ethical considerations. We will teach strategies for putting this knowledge into action (whether in practice or by writing for the public).
Far West Texas native and longtime Austinite Martha Beard-Duncan is managing attorney of TexasLawHelp.org at Texas Legal Services Center. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University, earned her JD from the University of Houston Law Center, and majored in English... Read More →
Managing legal tech vendor projects requires structured planning and ongoing oversight. This session outlines a practical approach to the procurement lifecycle, starting with assessing project viability and securing stakeholder buy-in. We will cover how to draft focused RFPs that define requirements rather than solutions, evaluate vendor proposals, and manage the vendor relationship through completion by monitoring progress and addressing scope creep.
Far West Texas native and longtime Austinite Martha Beard-Duncan is managing attorney of TexasLawHelp.org at Texas Legal Services Center. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University, earned her JD from the University of Houston Law Center, and majored in English... Read More →
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) is a national non-profit organization dedicated to serving unaccompanied children in the immigration system.
The Children’s Immigration Law Academy (CILA) is an expert legal resource center created by the American Bar Association (ABA), dedicated to helping legal practitioners stay up to date on frequent changes in immigration law and policy related to unaccompanied children.
Panelists from KIND and CILA will conduct a detailed training on legal representation of unaccompanied children in removal proceedings and the humanitarian forms of relief available to them. Attendees will learn about how a child is designated an unaccompanied minor, the process of obtaining legal relief and the importance of providing valuable pro bono legal representation for a vulnerable child facing removal. The training will also review the practical and ethical considerations of working with children, while exploring interactive hypothetical case issues with the audience.
Laura Egan is a Managing Attorney for Pro Bono and Communications with the Children's Immigration Law Academy (CILA). CILA is a project of the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration. She has been a part of the CILA team since 2019. Laura has practiced in two areas of... Read More →
