Put simply, we answer questions - thoroughly and quickly. Our Attorney Network covers a wide range of legal areas, so we’re ready for even your toughest, most obscure questions.

We guarantee a thorough answer or a full refund within 24 hours or less.

Since this is an Attorney Network, legal questions are of course what we’re best at. But lawyers are thinkers, so don’t hesitate to send questions of politics, philosophy, psychology, mental health, finances/investing, and anything else on your mind.

As a nonprofit, we can afford to charge less because we care more.

Our Attorney Network understands that our goal here is to help people, not profits.

On top of that, we also keep our costs to a minimum. We have no full-time staff, no advertising expenses and no executive compensation.

That lets us charge very little, while still offering thorough coverage across most areas of law, 24/7, even late at night, on weekends, and on holidays.

So, if you have any questions, about life or law, why not give it a shot? With our full refund guarantee, you have literally nothing to lose. And the education you’ll gain along the way will be priceless.

If you appreciate our work, we’d appreciate a tax-deductible donation! That would pay it forward to the next person and fund our nonprofit work.

We’d also appreciate your word-of-mouth support! If you love this Hotline, tell your friends and family about us. And if you hate this Hotline, then tell your enemies about us!

Like they say: if something’s too good to be true, then it could be a scam.

To verify that we’re a real nonprofit, you can find our profile on the IRS website at this link: https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/

Simply type in “Amicus Curiae” and we’re often the only search result that comes up. Or you can copy/paste our EIN into the search request: 83-3982689.

From there, you can see that the Amicus Curiae Foundation has been a tax-exempt organization since 2019, proudly serving communities around the U.S. as a legal aid nonprofit.

So, what’s the catch? How does this Hotline offer so much, but charge so little?

The next question in this Q&A tackles that, but the short answer is simple: helping people doesn’t cost a fortune.

We’d charge nothing if we could, and one day we will!

We offer a middle ground between free advice online (which is often terrible advice) and hiring an attorney, which costs thousands of dollars and might lead to nowhere.

Unlike the free hotlines that are overwhelmed and only available to some people at some times, we’re available to everyone, at all times.

And unlike the for-profit options out there, we offer a full refund if you don't receive an answer within 24 hours.

Meanwhile, the for-profit hotlines out there, like JustAnswer and AttorneysOnCall, are often accused of scamming customers with hidden fees, surprise memberships, and paying their attorneys so little that they can’t afford to give you anything but rushed, generic answers that don't really answer anything.

Meanwhile, with these small fees and with our donors’ generous donations, we can afford to offer simple, low prices with no surprises, and we make sure each attorney is paid fairly, so they can meaningfully tackle your questions.

We're here for you! When you select "Hotline Access," you'll be able to select if you have 1 question, up to 5 questions, or up to 20 questions.

A “question” asks one thing, like this:

1. “So, what can I do now?”

2. “How should I argue against that?”

3. “What kinds of evidence should I look for?”

By comparison, something like this is really asking two questions requiring two different topics for the attorney to research and answer:

1. “How do I start a business like that in Texas or Colorado?”

2. “Was that the right thing to do, and what should I do now?”

3. “So what are my rights in this case? Can I sue? Did he do anything illegal?”

We love questions! But in order to help the most amount of people at such a low price, we do have to keep our conversations focused and limited to the number of questions you purchased, including follow-up questions.

That way, we can help everyone thoroughly and quickly, instead of only being able to help only one person who has 10,000 questions.

And even if you have more than 20 questions, that’s ok! We will just ask you to please send them in as a new submission, from a new purchase of 1, 5, or 20 questions, depending on how many more question you need.

The good news is that even after that extra purchase, we’re still more affordable than any of the for-profit hotlines!

They rarely tell you upfront, but their attorneys will also stop answering more questions after a few questions, and then they will charge you a “premium service fee” of $100 or more to answer more questions.

Also, if you have leftover questions to ask (because you bought, let’s say, 5 questions but only asked 3), that’s ok too! You can ask your leftover questions anytime.

You certainly can!

Even if you only purchase the “1 question” option, if there’s anything unclear in the attorney’s guidance, feel free to let them know, and they may be able to explain further.

We try to respond to everything within 24 hours, but please note that the Refund Guarantee applies to your initial question, not to follow-up questions.

Also, please be as detailed as possible with your questions. Detailed questions can receive detailed answers. More often than not, follow-up questions start out as, “Oh, I forgot to mention…”

Our hotline is run by attorneys, but attorneys are big thinkers, so they are happy to take non-law questions too.

Questions about life advice, politics, ethics, philosophy, tutoring, movies, work/school projects, religion and so on are all welcome!

The attorneys allowed to work at this Hotline will all have a few things in common, to ensure that everyone gets serious, thoughtful answers to their questions:

1) Currently licensed to practice law

2) Actively practicing law

3) No disciplinary or criminal history

4) 7+ years of lawyering experience

5) Published author and/or recipient of awards related to the practice of law

As a nonprofit service designed to help the most people possible, this Hotline has to limit involvement.

Also, if the attorneys here could become deeply involved in the questions coming in, then we would have no way to guarantee an answer or a full refund within 24 hours.

As a result, none of the attorneys here are allowed to represent you, form an attorney-client relationship with you, provide legal advice, fill out your legal forms, contact anyone on your behalf, sign any contracts for you, meet with you in person, speak with you over the phone or via Zoom/Skype/etc., or make any guarantees about any outcomes.

We’d love to!

But as a small legal aid nonprofit, the most we can offer at the moment is our low-cost Hotline and the occasional pro bono event.

At the moment, we do not have the funds to offer any attorney-client representation or provide free legal aid.

With that being said, our blog is free to access and may have the guidance you needed to see, if even the $20 fee for Hotline access is outside of your budget.

As much as we’d like to accommodate refunds, for now the only refunds we can guarantee are refunds for questions that no one could answer within 24 hours.

So, please do not submit a payment unless you are confident that you have a question that needs to be answered.

One fun fact is, you do not have to submit a question right away! It’s ok to sign up for this Hotline and then come back later with your question or questions. Sometimes it takes time to think about what exactly you want to ask.

The password to our Hotline might change by the time you’re back, but that’s ok too. Just let us know at helps@amicuscf.org, and we’ll let you know what the new password is.

Please know that if you submit a question and then find an answer on your own, that answer may be bad advice and/or incomplete advice, making it all the more useful to talk to a real lawyer, who has years of hands-on experience handling issues just like yours.

There is a flood of bad legal advice from non-lawyers on social media, and we hope that this Hotline helps offer a middle ground between terrible legal advice from random non-lawyers online and unaffordable legal advice from in-person attorney consultations.

Unfortunately, the IRS does not allow tax deductions when payments are made in exchange for services.

You are certainly welcome to donate by selecting the "Donation" button at the bottom of our home page, but in order to maintain good standing with the IRS, we are not able to answer questions in exchange for donations.

Remember that we are a small nonprofit trying to help as many people as possible, at a very low cost. This means we cannot reach out to you and ask what you meant.

Instead, we need to answer the question that’s in front of us. If your submission to the Hotline says nothing more than “I need help," or "I have divorce questions," then you will still receive a response within 24 hours or a full refund, but the answer you receive is most likely going to be generic and unhelpful.

Similarly, if your submission to the Hotline is long and detailed but has no questions at all, then you will also still receive a response within 24 hours or a full refund, but the answer you receive is most likely not going to answer the questions on your mind. We can only guess what your questions are if you do not ask any questions.

So, please be detailed with your question or questions, and let us know any backstory that you think could be helpful to know.

For example, we assume all questions involve US citizens asking about US laws. If that is not true in your case, please let us know.

We cannot help with medical emergencies. For medical emergencies, please call 911.

For any legal emergency, requiring immediate assistance, please contact an attorney near you. This hotline does have an option to expedite an answer, but it may still take several minutes or longer to receive a response.

If you are in danger or experiencing any life-threatening emergency, please call 911.

At the moment, our prices are as low as they can be. As we grow, we are eager to set aside funding for pro bono services for those in need.

From time to time, we will offer giveaways, gift cards, coupons, referral deals, and so forth to our emailing list. Please join our emailing list for notifications of such offers.

But for now, if questions come into the hotline without a purchase and without a special offer from us, we unfortunately cannot afford to address them yet.

No. A for-profit company owns JustAnswer, AskALawyer, LawyersOnCall and similar hotlines.

That company provides a similar service as this Hotline, for what appears to be a fee of $84 per month, plus additional fees that they will charge as “premium services” for reviewing or drafting documents or asking too many questions.

We have no connection to that company. This is why we charge only $20 for access to our Hotline, and we guarantee an answer within 24 hours or a full refund.

No. LegalShield is a for-profit company that offers legal insurance, with no connection to our nonprofit or our Hotline.

LegalShield covers only some areas of law, and excludes many pre-existing legal issues. It also does not offer legal advice or in-court representation.

Many LegalShield clients have complained about receiving generic advice, waiting for days for an answer, or being penalized for asking too many questions.

You are welcome to follow up again, free of charge, if there is anything incorrect in the answer you receive, or if the attorney misunderstood anything you said.

Please remember, sometimes the problem is the law itself. The law can be extremely frustrating and unfair, but at least talking about it with a lawyer will give you the knowledge you need to move forward.

You may have already done a great deal of research into your question. It may be that the answer you receive does nothing more than confirm what you already know.

That is still very helpful, and for $20, it is well worth it to confirm things with an experienced attorney. You would likely have received the same guidance from meeting with an attorney in person, but that in-person consultation would have cost $300 or more and taken up hours of your time.

Please also note that repeatedly following up simply to express your displeasure at the law or at the Hotline may result in being banned from the Hotline and/or may incur additional fees, because scrubbing these kinds of messages off the Hotline can take as much time as answering an actual question.

We do have to collect basic information to process payments and answer questions, but we do not sell or share any customer information to any third parties unless required to do so by law.

We will not share any of these conversations in marketing campaigns or to social media outlets. While attorney-client privilege does not apply because no attorney-client relationships will be formed through our services, we will keep these conversations confidential.

For our more detailed policy, please click here.

Like most websites, we simply ask that you use our platform responsibly and not abusively. Please remember that we are a small nonprofit, doing what we can to help people in their time of need, and we are always open to feedback on how to improve our services.

For a more detailed policy, please click here.

No. Like most insurance companies, companies offering so-called “legal insurance” will charge customers for services and then try to avoid providing those services, for example by denying claims and excluding most legal areas and pre-existing legal issues from the “insurance” coverage. It often takes months or even years of payments before they will let an attorney represent you in court.

This is a far more limited kind of service than what they advertise. For most people, this offers them merely a false sense of security. And for the attorneys, it can be a recipe for disaster to try and answer unlimited numbers of questions from their legal insurance clients.

Lawyers have to focus. A well-researched answer takes time. So, these attorneys often find themselves forced to answer questions quickly and generically, without much thought or effort.

Instead of offering that “insurance” plan, we offer a simple, one-time, upfront payment that sends us your question(s) and then connects you to an attorney who can thoughtfully answer your question within 48 hours or else a full refund!

Questions asking for case law may be answered as Document Review/Drafting questions, because researching case law takes significant amounts of time and analysis, far more than answering regular questions.

If you are a licensed attorney who is actively practicing law and has 7+ years of experience, and you would like to serve your community as part of our Hotline network, please submit a statement of interest and resume to us at help@amicuscf.org.

Our Attorney Agreement is available for your review here. Thank you!

Unfortunately, if everyone with legal questions could ask them for free, we would be completely overwhelmed and unable to answer anything at all.

To that end, we do have to insist on answering questions only through the "Hotline Access" purchase. At $20, that is already the most affordable option out there.

So, if legal questions are emailed to us at help@amicuscf.org, then the only answer we can provide is to redirect the person to the Hotline page, where you can purchase access to the Hotline and then connect with an attorney.

We're serious about your privacy.

We won't share any of your information unless required by law, and we won't review any of the communications between you and the attorney who answers your question(s).

Compare that to our for-profit competitors, who post full-length conversations on their websites, for anyone to see!

Please do not contact the Hotline with requests to hurry up. That will only make it take longer for us to answer anything at all.

We promise we are working as quickly as possible. Sometimes the best answers take time: time to think, time to research, and time to write.

Also, for the fastest responses, there is an option at the check-out page to prioritize your question, which will ensure that your question is answered ASAP and will be among the first in line to be answered.

Please also note that repeatedly following up simply to ask us to hurry up may result in being banned from the Hotline and/or may incur additional fees, because scrubbing these kinds of messages off the Hotline can take as much time as answering an actual question.

It probably goes without saying, but people under a lot of pressure can really lash out at whoever they are talking to, or try to take advantage of nonprofits like us.

So, we do have to reserve the right to ban individuals from using this Hotline if they violate any of our terms of service, for example by threatening to harm any of us, using abusive language at any of us, or demanding answers to more questions than they signed up to ask.

For example, if a person signs up to ask one question, but asks many dozens instead, then the attorney they are connected to is most likely going to answer one question, and that attorney is under no obligation to respond to threats or any nasty comments.

Remember, we are only the messengers of the law and our experiences with the law. We’re here to help. We did not create these laws, we do not enforce these laws, and most importantly, we don’t always even like these laws.

But we do understand these laws, and we’re here to help explain them in plain English, so you can understand these laws better as well, even if these laws are unfair.

Please also note that repeatedly following up simply to express your displeasure at the law or at the Hotline may result in being banned from the Hotline and/or may incur additional fees, because scrubbing these kinds of messages off the Hotline can take as much time as answering an actual question.