Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc. (TRLA)

Established in 1970, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) is a nonprofit organization that provides free civil legal services to low-income and disadvantaged clients in a 68-county service area that covers the southwestern third of the state of Texas, including the entire Texas-Mexico border region, and to farmworkers throughout Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. TRLA also provides services to survivors of sexual assault in 114 counties in Northwest Texas. In addition, TRLA operates a rural regional public defender program in a number of rural counties in South Texas, providing representation to persons accused of felonies, misdemeanors, juvenile cases and appeals.

TRLA's staff includes approximately 170 lawyers and 55 paralegals and social workers located in 18 offices throughout the state. Program headquarters are in Mercedes, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, with branch offices located in Austin, Alpine, Beeville, Brownsville, El Paso, Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Dallas, Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Harlingen, Edinburg, Laredo, Rio Grande City, and Victoria. TRLA also houses its Southern Migrant Legal Services Project out of an office in Nashville, TN.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid's mission is to promote the dignity, self-sufficiency, safety and stability of low-income Texans by providing high quality civil legal assistance and related educational services.  The working poor, veterans, farmworkers, survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence victims, elder abuse victims, and the homeless are among the many clients served each year by TRLA staff. Cases range from routine family law counseling to complex litigation in state and federal courts from the local Justice of the Peace to the United States Supreme Court. TRLA is the largest legal aid provider in Texas, and one of the largest of its kind in the entire United States.