A hotline offering legal services to seniors dealing with financial scams is open for business and welcomes help from volunteer attorneys. The Texas Elder Exploitation Project (TEEP), an expansion of the Texas Legal Services Center (TLSC) Legal Hotline for Texans, has received a three-year, $300,000 federal grant, says Judy Doran , the managing attorney of the project. “We’d love to have volunteer attorneys,” Doran says. “We give free legal advice to seniors 60 and older and those on Medicare.” Volunteer attorneys will help answer the hotline in Austin or be available to handle clients referred for court actions, she says. The project helps seniors at risk of financial exploitation — such as harassment by debt collectors, overcharges for services or products, or being tricked into signing documents that give away their property or bank account control, Doran says. The grant to implement the TEEP is from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration on Aging. The TLSC will also contribute $100,000 to the project over the three-year period, Doran says. “At the end of three years all that money goes away, and we have to get private funding,” she says.
Family Matters
Texas Supreme Court Justice Debra Lehrmann learned a hard lesson about election law. On May 23, she entered into an agreed order with the Texas Ethics Commission to pay a $1,500 civil penalty for violating §253.155 of the Texas Election Code. According to the order, Lehrmann accepted a $100 donation and a $20,000 loan from her mother-in-law during her 2010 campaign for the high court. Under §253.155, a judicial candidate may not accept more than $5,000 from a person in a campaign for statewide office. Campaign contribution limits do not apply when the donation is made by an individual who is a family member. However, in-laws are not considered family members, the order noted. Lehrmann returned $15,100 to her mother-in-law after receiving notice that a sworn complaint was filed against her with the commission. The contribution was a misunderstanding, Lehrmann says. “I mean, my husband and I have been married for almost 27 years . . .,” Lehrmann says. “She’s like a mother to me, and it never occurred to me that she’s not a family member.” Lehrmann says she agreed to the order because she “just wanted to get down the road and focus on what I need to be doing, which is on the court.”
