Legal Guides

If you were arrested, were served with papers, or face a deadline, open the urgent guide for your state now and check the official court or agency instructions. Urgent topics are grouped together so you can reach them quickly:

• Arrest or criminal accusation
• Court papers or other papers served
• Protective order or immediate safety issue
• Filing deadline, hearing, or response deadline

Planning topics give you more time to read and prepare. They include wills and estate planning, business formation, contracts, real estate planning, and long-term family planning.

Every guide card tells you the question it answers, the state it covers, and whether the topic is urgent or planning-oriented. Inside a guide, the state, the publication date, and the last-updated date sit near the title, and Counselado is named as the publisher. Statutes, court rules, agency pages, and official forms are linked at the point where they are cited, so you can read the source itself. That matters because Google treats legal topics as high-stakes subjects and asks readers to be able to see who made a page, how, and why.

Each guide offers the same follow-up: review the official source and decide whether you need legal help. A guide gives general legal information and is not legal advice about your situation.

Two paths lead to the same guides. Browse by legal problem if you know what is happening but not the field of law, with topics such as arrest, eviction, divorce, wills, business formation, employment, immigration, and injury. Browse by state if you already know where your matter sits. Texas comes first, and the other states follow as guides are added.

Use the search box with your own words, such as "papers served" or "landlord wants me out." Those phrases lead to the matching guide even when you do not know its formal name. To compare firms that handle the same kind of matter, open practice areas or go to lawyers in Texas.

Spanish-speaking readers need the same core answers, plus clear terms and the state named. In a guide, "información legal" means general educational material, while "asesoramiento legal" or "consejería legal" means advice from a lawyer about your own facts. TexasLawHelp explains the difference.

TexasLawHelp en español publishes Spanish legal information, guides, forms, court basics, legal-aid directories, and clinics. The State Bar of Texas also has information in Spanish, including a page on how to find and choose an "abogado." For a firm, you will see "bufete de abogados" and "firma de abogados" used for the same thing. Where a guide or a firm offers help in Spanish, it should say so.

After reading a guide, you may want a firm that handles this type of matter. The state and practice area on a guide carry over to the directory, and you contact a firm directly. If cost is a question, the TexasLawHelp legal-aid directory lists legal-aid organizations in Texas, and the State Bar of Texas offers a Lawyer Referral and Information Service for paid, free, or reduced-fee resources by county.

Law firm owners can find what they need at for law firms, where you can claim your listing or add your firm. The attorney advertising page explains how listings and paid placement appear, and the disclaimer and about pages say who publishes the site.

Choose the guide that matches your legal question and state. Then review the official source and decide whether you need legal help.