Contact Us for Legal Help
The Equal Justice Center (EJC) is a small nonprofit that provides legal assistance to qualifying low-income individuals throughout Texas on work-related issues. We use litigation and other forms of legal advocacy to empower low-wage workers, including helping them:
- recover unpaid compensation (minimum wage, overtime pay, prevailing wages, contract wages, stolen tips);
- combat workplace sexual assault and harassment, and other forms of employment discrimination (and related retaliation);
- make use of specialized remedies for unpaid construction work such as mechanic’s liens;
- enforce anti-labor-trafficking statutes; and
- vindicate their right to organize for better wages and working conditions.
If you contact us about a work-related legal issue and are a qualifying low-income individual, we will happily provide a free and confidential intake screening.
We will first collect information from you through our online intake form or a phone interview. An attorney will review your responses to determine if we can offer to represent you. We may follow up with you to get more information if needed to better understand your situation. If we cannot take your case, a representative of the EJC will contact you over phone, text, or email to share referral information.
What to Expect Before You Contact Us
There are certain types of work-related cases we usually CANNOT take. These include:
- claims against public employers/governmental agencies (i.e. school teachers, school employees, county, state and federal employees);
- personal injury or workers’ compensation claims for workplace injuries;
- unemployment benefits applications or appeals; and
- cases arising from work performed outside of Texas.
We receive far more requests for help than our small team can handle. Unfortunately, this means we cannot offer to represent the majority of people who contact us for an intake, even when they qualify for our services and have a case that is urgent and deserving of legal support.
A denial does not mean your case lacks merit. If we cannot take a case, it is a reflection of our limited capacity or eligibility restrictions, not the importance of the matter.
Our limited resources also mean our intake process takes time. Our small staff is juggling intake work while also handling a busy docket of active cases. It may take more than 7 business days after we receive your initial intake responses before we are able to reconnect with you about your issue. We may contact you for more information before making a final decision on your case. Please note that some legal claims have short deadlines, and we cannot guarantee that we will be able to review your potential case before any relevant deadlines may expire.
How to Contact Us for an Intake
Fastest Option: Submit an Online Intake Form
To get your information to our attorneys as quickly as possible, we highly recommend using our online intake form. You can fill out and submit the form at any time when it is convenient for you, and it will automatically be uploaded into our system and ready for attorney review.
Call Us at 800-853-4028
Please either call and leave a message or complete our online form, but not both, as duplicate submissions may delay our intake review process.
If you cannot use our online intake form or prefer not to, you can start the intake process by leaving us a voicemail. Phone intakes usually take longer than submitting an online intake form, because there are more steps before your case is ready for attorney review:
- Scheduling: We cannot answer live intake calls, and we return calls in the order received. It may take several days to connect and find a mutually convenient time for your confidential interview.
- Interview: You will speak with a trained intake representative who will gather your details. They are not attorneys and cannot give legal advice during your interview, but they will prepare your file for attorney review after your interview is completed.
We want to understand your story clearly. Most of our staff speaks English and Spanish. If you need a spoken language interpreter or a Sign Language Video Phone interview, please let us know when you leave your message so we can arrange that for you free of charge.
