Frequently Asked Questions

It depends on a number of things, like your income and your legal issue.

Some ways you might qualify include:
Your income is at or below 125% of the federal poverty level

• You are experiencing domestic abuse
• You are a veteran
• You are 60 or older

We encourage you to apply to find out.

We help with civil legal issues. A civil legal issue is a situation where someone is not charged with a crime.

Some of the types of cases include:

Housing Stability: Eviction, housing assistance, rentals in need of repair, housing discrimination
Income: Social Security overpayments or terminations, Medicaid, Medicare, food assistance, unemployment
Family: Custody, divorce, protective orders
Disaster Recovery: Insurance claims, contractor fraud, applying for government disaster benefits
Consumer Protection: Garnishment and bankruptcy

If you’re not sure whether your issue qualifies, we encourage you to apply to find out.

We usually help people who make up to 125% of the poverty level because our funding sources often have income guidelines. In some situations we can make exceptions for people who are up to 200% of the poverty level.

Some special grants let us help people who make more, especially for specific issues (like taxes and foreclosures) or groups (like older Iowans).

No, we don’t handle current criminal charges, appeals, probation, or parole. We can help with expungement of old criminal records.

Because we have limited staff, we can’t help with all cases.

Here are some cases we can’t take:

• Help with child support – whether you need it, are paying, or want to change it, please contact Iowa Child Support Recovery.
  – You can read information on our website: Child Support Information.
  – There are self-help forms to change child support on the Iowa Courts website: Iowa Court Forms.
• Apply for SSI or Social Security Disability – the Social Security website has the applications: www.ssa.gov
• Wills and estate issues if you are under 60 years old
• Worker’s compensation

You can find attorneys for cases we are not taking on the Bar Association website.

We can help all legal permanent residents and some with other immigration statuses.

We can also help survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, or certain other crimes with cases related to that crime.

We do not have enough attorneys to represent everyone who is eligible. But we can often still give legal advice, walk you through how to represent yourself in court, or provide self-help forms.

It means we have an obligation or connection to another person that keeps us from helping you under attorney ethical rules. We cannot advise or represent you for this problem. We can’t give details about the conflict because we have to protect everyone’s privacy.

There are different reasons for conflicts, including:

• You contacted us for help with a problem involving a client of Iowa Legal Aid.
• We advised the other person on the same issue.
• The person you have a problem with may have contacted us about a different type of problem, and we have confidential information.
• Someone living with you or the other person may have contacted us for help.

Unfortunately, there are not enough volunteer attorneys to help everyone. There may not be one in your county who can take your type of case.

Many of our clients have disabilities. Persons with disabilities must meet our income and other guidelines and have the type of legal issue we take.

We ask for input about our case priorities from the public, private attorneys, our staff, and board members. That helps us decide which types of cases we can take.

Each state’s laws are different. We are only allowed to have our attorneys practice law in Iowa.

For information about legal issues in other states, go to LawHelp.org.