The ACLU of West Virginia receives thousands of requests for assistance every year. We are a small staff and have a limited capacity to take on new cases and clients; as a result, there are many cases where someone has suffered real injustice, and yet we are not able to help.
If you think you have a potential legal claim, there may be important deadlines by which you need to take action. It is important that you contact other attorneys promptly to find out which deadlines apply in your case. To find attorneys who may be interested in your case, we recommend that you utilize the West Virginia Online Lawyer Referral Service which can be found at www.wvlawyerreferral.org.
If we are not able to provide you with legal assistance, we will still make every effort to contact you to acknowledge receipt of your request. If we are not able to assist you by taking legal action on your behalf, members of ACLU-WV still may be able to help investigate what happened to you, raise awareness, or include your experience in organizing efforts. Please click here to see a link to current staff and their contact information.
To submit a request online:
Please click here and answer the questions contained in our online intake form.
To send a request by letter, send your letter to:
ACLU-WV Legal
P.O. Box 3952
Charleston, WV 25339
For guidance on what to include in a written request for assistance please click here.
We do not conduct intake interviews in-person or over the phone. If you require accommodation to submit your request for assistance, please contact us at (304) 202-3769 and state that you are requesting accommodations in submitting legal intake. Please understand the person who assists you in requesting accommodations may not be a part of the law firm, and that you should only provide legal information through the online system, by letter, or by talking to a member of our law firm staff directly as part of an accommodation.
If you are seeking assistance for a problem that occurred in another state, please click here for a national directory of ACLU offices.
Guidance for submitting written requests for assistance:
We review all requests for assistance that we receive, and attempt to respond to each one to acknowledge receipt, even if we are not able to take your case. However, please do not send original documents to our office. We want you to have access to those documents to seek the assistance of other attorneys while you await our response.
If you would like to do so, you can access a printable version of our intake form at the bottom of this page. If you would like to fill out this form and mail it in, you are welcome to do so.
If you would like to write a letter describing the issue that you’re facing, please be sure to include your full name and contact information – including your mailing address, email address (if available), phone number, DOC number (if applicable), and any guidance on the best way for us to contact you. If you write to us from a jail or other temporary address, please include the name and contact information of a close relative friend who will know where you are and who we can contact to get updated information about how to reach out.
In your letter, please describe in detail the incident or the issue that prompts you to request legal assistance. In describing the incident, it may be helpful to answer the five “W” questions: who, what, when, where, and why. Be sure to identify the persons, businesses, institutions, or government agencies who are responsible for violating your rights. If you have already taken some action, such as filing an appeal or a complaint, please let us know what steps have already been taken. Please indicate whether the ACLU is authorized to share the information you have provided us with other organizations or attorneys who may be able to help. Finally, please let us know what you are asking the ACLU to do for you.