Virginia: legal help you can afford
There is no public defender for a divorce in Virginia, or anywhere else — the right to a free lawyer is a criminal-case right, and a divorce is a civil case. What exists instead is on this page, with the link to each one. Start with the fee waiver and the question of whether your spouse can be made to pay your legal fees, because those two are the ones people never think to ask about.
See a different stateVirginia
The five things to try, in this order
Ordered by how much they are worth relative to how hard they are, not alphabetically.
- Ask about the filing fee waiver. In Virginia it is called Fee Waiver (Petition for Proceeding in Civil Case Without Payment of Fees or Costs). Form Form CC-1414. Available to low-income filers, e.g. those receiving SNAP or TANF, or whose income qualifies for legal aid.
- Ask whether your spouse can be ordered to pay your lawyer. In divorce suits, the court has discretion to require one party to pay some or all of the other party’s costs and attorney’s fees; Virginia otherwise follows the ‘American Rule’ under which each party ordinarily bears their own fees absent such an order. (Va. Code Ann. sec. 20-99(6) (formerly cited as 20-99(b)))
- Check the statewide legal-aid portal. Virginia Law Help lists the program that covers your county and what it takes.
- Use the court self-help service. Virginia Judicial System Court Self-Help. Guidance on filing fees & waivers, and links to Virginia Law Help’s DIY Divorce Tool that generates a full no-fault divorce packet including the Fee Waiver form.
- Try the bar referral service. Virginia Lawyer Referral Service (VLRS). $35 non-refundable referral fee for a consultation; phone (800) 552-7977 or (804) 775-0808, Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. Separately, some local bars run a Modest Means program (e.g., Fairfax Bar Association’s Modest Means half-hour consultation is reduced to $20, with participating attorneys capped at $150/hour).
Legal aid in Virginia
Legal aid organizations are funded to serve people under an income threshold, and family cases are one of the areas they most often take. Being turned down by one is not the end of it — the threshold, the caseload and the priorities differ by program and by month.
| Organization | Who it covers | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Virginia Legal Aid Society | regional (part of a statewide network of legal aid societies) | Call 1-866-LEGLAID (1-866-534-5243) to be routed to the local legal aid office; e.g. Central Virginia Legal Aid Society (804) 775-0808 / 1-800-552-7977), Legal Services of Northern Virginia (703) 777-0270 / 800-678-5021). |
Worth knowing about Virginia
- Did not confirm a specific Virginia law-school family-law/divorce clinic within the research budget; left null rather than guess (several Virginia law schools, e.g. GMU, UVA, W&L, run clinical programs).
Limited scope representation. You hire a lawyer for one piece — one hearing, one document, a review of an agreement before you sign it — and do the rest yourself. It costs a fraction of full representation and it puts a lawyer in the two or three moments that actually change the outcome. How it works, and where it is permitted.
What we could not confirm for this state
Listed rather than filled in. Every one of these is something we went looking for and could not stand behind.
- a law school family law clinic we could confirm is currently running
If you know one of these and we have it wrong or missing, tell us and we will check it and credit the correction.
Compiled 31 August 2026 from each organization’s own site, the state courts and the state bar. Legal aid funding and eligibility change, sometimes mid-year. Always check the link before relying on anything here. Corrections welcome.
Keep reading
- The national picture — fee waivers, unbundling, fee awards
- The Virginia divorce kit — forms, fees and deadlines
- Doing it without a lawyer
- Questions to ask a lawyer
- What divorce costs
- What two households cost