Volunteers will assist individuals with driver’s license holds related to unpaid criminal justice debt. Volunteers will meet with low-income drivers over Zoom, research the cause(s) of license suspensions, and explain the steps drivers must take to recover their licenses. In most cases, the first step to driver’s license recovery will involve obtaining a fee waiver, fee reduction, or alternative payment plan. In those cases, volunteers will help individuals complete financial affidavits.
Organization
Texas Fair Defense Project (TFDP)
The Driver’s License Recovery Project is project of TFDP and the Richard and Ginni Mithoff Pro Bono Program dedicated to addressing how driver’s license suspensions contribute to a cycle of incarceration for debt and create significant employment barriers in low-income communities. TFDP provides local legal help to people with suspended licenses, works to change policies that use driver license suspensions to punish the poor, and serves as a statewide resource to people facing these challenges.
Project Details
- Project Date
Friday, August 14
- Project Time
- 8:45 AM-12 PM
- Approximate hours of work requested
- 4.5 hours, including training
- Training
- Will be scheduled with volunteers who sign-up based on individual schedules, but likely an early evening on a weekday
- Skills used
- Client communication; records research; document preparation/review
- Project location
- Virtual
- Number of student volunteers requested
- 4
- Class year preference
- 1L, 2L, 3L, LLM
- To Apply
- Send an email expressing interest to Karly Jo Dixon, Managing Attorney with the Texas Fair Defense Project, at kdixon@fairdefense.org; also cc Sarah Sedgwick at ssedgwick@law.utexas.edu.