About This Site
Texas publishes its civil law in full. Every statute and every court rule is free to read, and this site turns selected parts of that law into plain-English guides. This page explains what the guides cover, how they are sourced, what the review date means, and how errors get fixed.
What this site is
Texas Legal Answers is a reference publication. It sells nothing, takes no questions, and does not match readers with lawyers. Each guide picks one legal problem, explains what the governing statute or rule provides, walks through the process the law sets out, and links to relevant official sources.
The guides are grouped into six areas:
- family law, including custody, child support, divorce, and protective orders
- renters' rights, including eviction, repairs, and security deposits
- debt and small claims
- probate and inheritance
- employment and wages
- consumer protection, including the lemon law and identity theft
All of them are collected in the full guide library, arranged by problem rather than by code chapter.
How the guides are sourced
Guides link to official sources in the text and in a Sources list. FAQ answers refer to the relevant law by name or section number. Sources fall into three groups.
- What the law says. Texas statutes as the Legislature publishes them at statutes.capitol.texas.gov, and court rules as the Texas Judicial Branch publishes them at txcourts.gov. Federal law is cited to official United States Code sources.
- How an agency runs its own process. Some steps, such as how to file a wage claim or a lemon law complaint, are set by the state agency that handles them. For those, a guide cites that agency's own official page and names the agency in the sentence. An agency page is never used in place of the statute for what the law requires.
- Official legal-information resources. The Texas State Law Library helps explain available procedures and locate forms. Its summaries are identified as library guidance, not the text of the statute. Commercial legal sites and law firm articles are not used as authority for the guides.
A source counts only if it was actually retrieved and read. A page that fails to load, or loads empty, is not treated as evidence for anything.
What the review date means
Each guide shows a reviewed date. That date marks an editorial source check: the guide's legal claims were compared with the official sources retrieved on or before that day. It is not legal advice, and it does not mean a lawyer approved the guide.
No licensed attorney reviews these guides for the publication, and none is named as an author or reviewer. The byline on each guide is the publication's name. It identifies the publication, not an individual lawyer.
Texas amends its codes every legislative session, so the review date is part of the information. The older it is, the more reason to open the cited section yourself before relying on it.
Figures that agencies and courts can change
Some numbers are not fixed by statute. Court filing fees are set locally, and some dollar figures, such as an agency's filing fee or a benefit amount, are set or adjusted by the agency. Those numbers can change without any new law.
When a guide gives one of these figures, it names the agency or office that sets it, states the date the figure was checked, and links the page where the current figure is published. When a guide cannot date and source a figure that way, it leaves the number out and tells you where to look it up. Either way, check the current figure with the office that sets it before relying on it.
Corrections
If a guide contains an error, send it to [email protected]. That includes a wrong section number, a provision that has since been amended or repealed, or a figure that no longer matches the official source. Every report is checked against the official text of the source in question. If the guide is wrong, the page is corrected and its review date is updated. If the guide holds up, you get a reply pointing to the language it rests on. The contact page explains what to include so a report can be verified quickly.
Independence and the free legal advice clinic
This publication is independent. It is not affiliated with the State Bar of Texas, the American Bar Association, or any government agency, and none of those bodies has reviewed or endorsed anything published here.
If you came here looking for the free clinic where eligible Texans can post a civil legal question for a volunteer attorney, that separate service operates at texas.freelegalanswers.org. If you came to this address looking for it, follow that link. This site is an independent publication that does not accept questions and cannot answer any question about your own case.
Not legal advice
Each guide explains the law as it is written, and no guide can apply that law to any particular reader's facts. Reading this site creates no attorney-client relationship with anyone. For advice about your own case, you need a licensed Texas attorney, and the directory of free legal help in Texas lists routes to one at little or no cost.