The Clerk’s Office will be closed on Tuesday, December 24th & Wednesday, December 25th in observance of the Christmas holiday. Staff will be available to assist you with filing for a restraining order from 7am until 10am at the Edgecomb Courthouse located at 800 E. Twiggs St. Tampa.

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CLERK OF COURT & COMPTROLLER

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA

Free Legal Assistance (image)

How to get free legal advice 24 hours a day

A new, free, online service provides legal advice for civil cases 24 hours a day.

Florida Free Legal Answers, a partnership of the American Bar Association and the Florida Bar, is intended to give brief, basic legal advice to people with low incomes. About 500 attorneys have agreed to volunteer their time.

The attorneys will not write letters or file documents, but they will advise you how to proceed. Criminal cases are not included.

Topics range from divorce to adoption, name changes to child support, along with domestic violence, bankruptcy, wills and estate planning. Complex issues are better handled by hiring a lawyer.

Those seeking assistance must be at least 18 years old, not incarcerated and have annual household incomes below 250 percent of federal poverty guidelines, as well as total assets of less than $6,000.

If you qualify for assistance, you can sign up for an account and post a question privately. A volunteer attorney will anonymously answer the question through the website. An email alert will be sent to you when the question is answered.