Forms

Affidavit of Heirship (Thank you to Cliff McKinney for sharing this form!)

Affidavit of Inheritance of a Motor Vehicle

Quitclaim Deed (Thank you to Cliff McKinney for sharing this form!)

Record Sealing Forms

Do you have a form you are willing to share with other volunteers? If so, please email Abby Brenneman at abby@arkansasjustice.org. Thank you for helping us build our form bank!

For resources on a variety of areas of law, visit the Arkansas Law Help page, here. On the home page, you will see various information and fact sheets about specific areas of law such as housing, family law, public benefits, veteran resources, debt and consumer law. To view thier self-help forms, click here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I find the volunteer training?

You can find the training here.

Will I earn CLE credit for volunteering with AR Free Legal Answers?

Yes! If your answers meet our quality standards (see our volunteer training at minute 30 for best practices), you can earn up to three hours of CLE credit per CLE cycle. CLE credit is earned at a ratio of one hour of CLE credit for every three hours of pro bono service. Read more about Arkansas's CLE for Pro Bono Rule.

How do I make a referral to legal aid?

Legal aid conducts intakes by phone. Clients interested in applying for legal aid should call 1.800.952.9243. Please never only refer a client to legal aid, unless that information is all the client has asked about. We always want to provide some legal advice or information when a client asks a question, even if you ultimately believe they need to apply for legal aid.

What types of clients/cases does legal aid accept?

In order to get help from legal aid, an applicant must both financially qualify and have a case that falls into one of legal aid’s priority areas.

Financial Restrictions:

Applicants must generally be at 125% of the federal poverty level or below. Below is a table showing what these income levels are in 2022.

Case Priorities:

Is there low-cost legal help available for clients on the site?

Yes! Many clients on AR Free Legal Answers will be seeking “forms” to use for various case types. Unfortunately, Arkansas has very few official forms which we can provide to clients. However, Arkansas allows attorneys to offer limited scope representation, also known as legal a la carte or unbundled legal services.

Attorneys who offer this type of legal service generally agree to only draft pleadings and provide advice to clients, the attorney doesn’t make court appearances or handle the entire case for the client. In exchange, the attorney charges a reduced fee, often as low as few hundred dollars. You can find a directory of attorneys who offer limited scope representation at: https://arkansasjustice.org/unbundling/attorney-directory/. This directory is a free service offered by the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission.

Who is eligible to use AR Free Legal Answers?

Eligibility for use of AR Free Legal Answers is limited to the following:

• The user must have household income less than 250% of the federal poverty level;
• The user may not have liquid assets exceeding $5,000 in value (this includes checking and savings account balances, as well as the value of any stocks or bonds);
• The user may not be incarcerated;
• The user may not request assistance with criminal law matters.

Users must provide their name, county, and zip code in order to request advice.

Users agree to post no more than 3 legal questions per year on 3 different topics. They can follow-up with an attorney on each question as many times as the attorney and user choose to do so.

What kinds of lawyers should participate?

All lawyers are welcome! While there are certain types of legal questions that regularly come up at legal clinics, we need lawyers with different areas of expertise and practice to volunteer. We hope the website will appeal to lawyers who want to give back but have been unable to participate in traditional pro bono work due to family obligations, schedule or geographic location. We also hope to engage lawyers who already provide pro bono and are willing to give more of their time to those who need it.

What happens if a lawyer cannot answer a user’s question?

A lawyer might be unable to answer a user’s question for a number of reasons. Some examples might be a conflict of interest, user’s failure to respond to lawyer requests for additional information or the question is determined to fall outside the lawyer’s area of expertise. Lawyers will have access to brochures on various areas of substantive law to help them answer questions. If a lawyer determines that (s)he cannot answer a question, the lawyer may place the question back into the queue so that another volunteer lawyer may try to assist the user. If a lawyer takes a question and doesn't respond within 3 days, the question will automatically return to open questions queue.

What type of relationship exists between the client and lawyer?

When a user submits a question and receives an answer from a lawyer, there will be a lawyer/client relationship formed between that client and the lawyer who responds. That relationship, however, will be limited in scope and duration as described in the use agreements for both users and lawyers. The representation will be limited to providing an answer to the legal question and will not involve any continuing representation of the client beyond the act of providing such an answer. The lawyer will provide short-term, limited legal services to a client (the eligible user of this site) without expectation by either the lawyer or the client (the eligible user of this site) that the lawyer will provide continuing representation in the matter. Both the eligible users and lawyers must consent to the limited nature of this relationship both as to scope and duration as indicated when they accept the terms of the use agreement. Eligible users and lawyers who do not accept the terms of the use agreement will not be allowed access to the site.

How do lawyers check for conflicts of interest?

Under Arkansas law (Ark. R. Prof'l Conduct 1.2(c) and 6.5), because of the pro bono publico nature of the limited scope representation provided through AR Free Legal Answers and because of the involvement of the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission as the administrator, the general rules for lawyers as to conflicts of interest do not apply to lawyers’ participation in AR Free Legal Answers. Instead, the only conflicts of interest that would preclude a lawyer from answering a question for an eligible user of AR Free Legal Answers are conflicts of interest that the lawyer actually knows of at the time that they view a client’s question. This means that the possibility exists, and the clients agree that they understand, that a lawyer who answers a question, or another lawyer with whom they practice in a firm, may actually be representing other parties with an interest in the question. The user’s name will be provided to the lawyer so that the lawyer can make sure not to answer the question if the lawyer knows that (s)he would have a conflict of interest.

What about professional liability insurance coverage?

Volunteer lawyers who provide brief advice and counsel via the website will be covered by professional liability insurance maintained by the American Bar Association. If an issue of malpractice arises, the ABA Free Legal Answers administrator can trace each answered question back to the attorney who answered it. The site administrator may have to contact lawyers participating in the program from time to time related to this insurance coverage.

Is there a confidentiality issue with client information/lawyer advice being housed on the internet?

This site is designed to insure client privacy. Since the web program is administered via email through a platform that limits access based on a screening, confidentiality will be maintained since only the website administrator has access to content between a client and a lawyer. Information available to the website administrator and the lawyer responding to a client request shall remain confidential, subject to the limitations of the Privacy/Confidentiality Policy. However, client requests for information and the response of the lawyers participating in AR Free Legal Answers may be maintained in a database for review in order to measure the effectiveness of the project. Steps will be taken to maintain the security of this database and it will only be utilized by the administrator but an absolute guarantee of security is not possible when using the internet and internet based systems.

For each visitor to the Webpage the web server automatically recognizes only the consumer domain name. This is the information that is collected for statistical purposes.

Aggregate information is collected on the pages consumers’ access or visit on this website.

The information collected is used to improve the content of the web page and is not shared with other organizations for commercial purposes. Information may be disclosed when legally required at the request of government authorities conducting an investigation, to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our website and applicable laws or to protect against misuses or unauthorized use of our website.

Navigating the Website and Selecting Questions to Answer

When your account has been approved by the website administrator, you will receive a notification email. To get started you will go to ar.freelegalanswers.org and select “Sign In” at the top right side of your screen. After you enter your username (which is your email address) and password, you will automatically be directed to a page that lists all the questions that have been posted for lawyers to answer.

You will notice that the questions are coded by flags. These flags lets you know how long each question has been in the queue. Questions with red-outline flags are those that have been posted for more than 10 days and questions with filled-in red flags are questions that have been in the queue for at least 25 days and will be closed if no lawyer is able to answer them. Questions that are not answered within 30 days will be closed and the client will be notified.

You have three ways in which to view questions in the queue:

1. You can view a list of all the questions in the queue; this is the default view.
2. You can view a list of questions that have been in the queue for 25 days or longer by clicking on the “Importance” option under the "Sort" button.
3. You can view questions by legal categories by clicking on the “Filter” button. 
4. You can easily view any question you have taken to answer by clicking "Home" on the menu and looking at questions in your personal queue.

The client is asked to use the Subject line to tell you, in their own words, what the question is about (for example, eviction, divorce, bankruptcy, etc.). The Category and Subject functions are tools to help lawyers quickly decide which questions they would like to review and answer.

How Do I Subscribe to a Category?

If your area of practice is specialized and you only want to answer certain types of questions, you can subscribe to a Category and receive an email notification each time a question in that particular Category is posted.

To subscribe to a Category (for example, immigration), click on the “Manage Subscriptions” tab at the top of the screen. Scroll down to the Category you are interested in and click on the red circle. When the red circle changes to a check mark, you have successfully subscribed to that category. You may also choose where you want to get subscription emails. To change it from your username email, click on your email address next to the green check and enter your different email address. Click the save icon to save your email address. You can unsubscribe at any time.

How do I contact the administrator with a question?

The AR Free Legal Answers site is administered by the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission. If you have a question or run into a technical problem with the site, you may contact the administrator by emailing the AR site administrator.

ABA Home Front

www.abahomefront.org

ABA Home Front provides legal information, resources, and a directory of legal programs for veterans, service members, and military families. Programs listed include military legal assistance offices, legal aid and pro bono organizations, lawyer referral and information services, and military-specific programs where available.

ABA Military Pro Bono Project

www.militaryprobono.org

The ABA Military Pro Bono Project accepts case referrals from military attorneys on behalf of junior-enlisted, active-duty military personnel facing civil legal issues, and it works to place these cases with pro bono attorneys. The Project is also the platform for Operation Stand-By, through which military attorneys and other pro bono attorneys may seek attorney-to-attorney guidance.