With the Houston Rodeo concluding this weekend, perhaps some of you reading this are headed there tonight to get your livestock and Jonas Brothers fix. I may be the worst Texan ever, but somehow I’ve never been to the rodeo in my 25 years living in the state. Nor do I really care for country music. But I would have gone to see 50 Cent or Nickelback (the people watching of diehard Nickleback fans has got to be amazing), so I suppose there’s always next year.
While students are gaining scholarship money through livestock auctions at the Houston Rodeo, ranchers in the Texas Panhandle are taking an immense financial hit after losing a reported 7,000 head of cattle from the ongoing Smokehouse Creek Fire that has ripped through the area, which is why you’ll see in this week’s edition information about a fund that is offering financial support to ranchers impacted by natural disaster.
More on that below, as well as Congressional funding news for civil legal aid in Texas, an upcoming legal knowledge education event for the public at a Central Texas law school and the Texas Bar Foundation’s choice to receive its annual public service and legal ethics-oriented award.
The Latest
— Last Friday, Congress passed $560 million in flat funding to Legal Services Corporation for its 2024 fiscal year. Founded in the 1970s by Congress, LSC is an independent nonprofit that provides funding to civil legal aid organizations across the U.S. that serve low-income Americans. The dollar amount matches what Congress provided to LSC for its 2023 fiscal year, which was a $71 million boost from the previous year. The national funding increase mirrored what is happening at the local level; last year, the Texas Legislature approved a funding boost that benefited the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, which is the primary funder for Texas legal aid organizations at the state level.
Roughly $46 million of the 2024 funding is expected to go to the three legal aid organizations in Texas that receive grants from LSC: nearly $17 million to Lone Star Legal Aid, nearly $13 million to Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas and nearly $16 million to Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.
The appropriations bill that was passed in order for the funding to happen also includes an administrative provision change to the boards of LSC’s legal aid grantees. Previously, licensed attorneys had to account for 60 percent of legal organizations’ board members; now, the provision only requires 33 percent to be attorneys in an effort to diversify the skill sets of legal aid leadership.
— Next Saturday, March 23, St. Mary’s University School of Law and the San Antonio Bar Foundation will host the 30th Annual People’s Law School, which aims to educate the public with practical legal knowledge and timely legal issues impacting local residents. The free event is open forty all and will feature legal experts from the law school, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and private practice. Heavily involved in organizing the event is 2018 St. Mary’s Law grad Stephanie Harlien, the law school’s director of pro bono programs. She is co-presenting a seminar on landlord-tenant issues with St. Mary’s law students.
Other session topics will include wills and powers of attorney; email and phone scams; constitutional and criminal law rights; guardianships and trusts; plans for retirement; and divorce, protective orders and Child Protective Servicescases.
When: Saturday, March 23, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Doors open at 8:30 a.m.
Where: the Law Classrooms Building on the St. Mary’s law school campus. (Map here).
Parking: Lot D, near the NW 36th Street entrance. (Campus map here with more details).
Price: Free
More information: Visit here for more details and to see the full schedule, or contact Stephanie Harlien with questions.
— Fort Worth nonprofit Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association recently announced that it is providing financial aid to select cattle raisers impacted by the Panhandle wildfires who are based there and Western Oklahoma. Those who need assistance can submit an application to be considered for financial aid. TSCRA is funding the financial aid through its TSCRA Disaster Relief Fund, which supports ranchers and landowners impacted by natural disasters. Qualified applicants are those who have not received aid through insurance or other means.
TSCRA opened this application period after hundreds of individuals and companies donated gifts in response to the Smokehouse Creek fire, the second largest wildfire in U.S. history and the largest ever in Texas. Applicants are not required to be TSCRA members. Those who wish to apply should detail loss or damages from the fires in their applications and also include documentation — insurance policies and claims, inventory records, photographs, etc.
More information on the TSCRA Disaster Fund, the application and other resources for livestock owners can be found here.
— The Texas Bar Foundation recently honored Fort Worth personal injury trial lawyer Steven Laird with its 2024 Lola Wright Foundation Award, which recognizes lawyers who demonstrate outstanding public service in advancing and enhancing legal ethics in Texas. Laird has a longstanding reputation for striving for the highest ethical principles, demonstrated by his previous appointments to the Texas Supreme Court’s Professional Ethics Committee and its Task Force Committee on Advertising and Referral Fees.
He’s also the past recipient of similar awards, including in 2021, when the Tarrant County Bar Association honored him with the Blackstone Award, which recognizes lawyers dedicated to ethical ideals, courage and service to the legal profession.