Disaster Relief Legal Assistance

    Disasters, both natural and manmade, can result in large populations in immediate need of legal assistance on a number of topics. Although it is difficult to know when disaster may strike, legal services providers can have a plan in place to mobilize community attorneys to provide pro bono assistance when necessary. Including volunteer attorneys in the plan will allow the program to provide assistance to more people, more quickly and efficiently. Check out the Basic Resources and Organizing a Disaster Legal Assistance Relief effort below.

    Information

    ABA Young Lawyer Division Disaster Legal Services Program

    ABA Young Lawyer Division Disaster Legal Hotlines

    American Bar Association Committee on Disaster Response and Preparedness

    The Standing Committee on Disaster Response and Preparedness is committed to educating lawyers, bar associations and the justice system to prepare for and respond to disasters.

    Resources for Lawyers and Law Firms

    Resources for State and Local Bars

    Resources for Courts

    Resources for the Public

    Disaster Planning

    Post-Disaster Resources and Assistance

    The National Disaster Legal Aid website gathers resources from the American Bar Association. Legal Services Corporation, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, Lone Star Legal Aid and Pro Bono Net.

    The ABA Center for Pro Bono's Clearinghouse Library contains additional materials concerning disaster assistance projects, including manuals for the provision of disaster legal assistance. For more information, please email Center Staff at abaprobono@americanbar.org.

    Organizing a DLA Effort

    Organizing a disaster legal assistance effort entails preparing a plan to set into motion in the event of a disaster. A lead organization or person should be designated to coordinate the effort. The organizations involved should develop contingency plans for communication and other logistics. Organizations should also develop and keep current a panel of volunteers, as well as a manual covering common legal situations and available resources. In preparation for delivering legal services post-disaster, the Most Common Disaster Legal Needs Timeline is a helpful guide.

    Utilizing the Internet to manage and coordinate the effort can streamline procedures. For example, the Virginia Bar Association includes on its website a volunteer form for pro bono attorneys for assistance with the September 2003 Hurricane Isabel effort. An additional example is the West Tennessee Legal Services ("WTLS") web page with information about Disaster Recovery Services: The Community Partnership for Long-Term Tornado Recovery following the devastation in WTLS' service area in 2003.

    The Disaster Response Lawyers Coalition, a coalition of 15 different organizations, established a website to facilitate the provision of disaster legal assistance to victims of the San Diego area wildfires. The website directs those in need of assistance to the appropriate resources; provides information on various topics, such as hiring a contractor or tax relief for fire victims; and articles on related topics. The website also provides information on volunteering to provide legal assistance, an online application to volunteer, and online training materials.

    Posting materials on the Internet for volunteers providing legal assistance provides easily accessed information on common issues. Another example of such materials can be found on the Morrison & Foerster LLP website, where 'Helping Handbooks' for many disasters are posted.

    The National Disaster Legal Aid website gathers resources from the American Bar Association. Legal Services Corporation, the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, Lone Star Legal Aid and Pro Bono Net.

    National Resources

    DisasterAssistance.gov - Access to Disaster Help and Resources "The Disaster Assistance Improvement Program’s (DAIP) mission is to provide disaster survivors with information, support, services, and a means to access and apply for disaster assistance through joint data-sharing efforts between federal, tribal, state, local, and private sector partners"

    The Disaster Distress Helpline (DDH) is the first national hotline dedicated to providing year-round disaster crisis counseling. This toll-free, multilingual, crisis support service is available 24/7 via telephone (1-800-985-5990) and SMS (text 'TalkWithUs' to 66746) to residents in the U.S. and its territories who are experiencing emotional distress related to natural or man-made disasters.

    The Federal Emergency Management Agency ("FEMA") is an independent agency of the federal government founded in 1979. FEMA's mission is to reduce loss of life and property and protect our nation's critical infrastructure from all types of hazards through a comprehensive, risk-based, emergency management program of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

    Basic Resources

    The American Bar Association House of Delegates at the 2007 Midyear Meeting in February overwhelmingly approved A Model Court Rule on Provision of Legal Services Following Determination of Major Disaster. The model rule would allow out-of-state lawyers to provide pro bono legal services in an affected jurisdiction and lawyers in the affected jurisdiction whose legal practices had been disrupted by a major disaster to practice law on a temporary basis in an unaffected jurisdiction. To see the status of State Implementation of this rule you may view this resource: Chart - State Implementation of ABA Model Court Rule on Provision of Legal Services Following Determination of Major Disaster

    The ABA Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division recently published an article "Federal Disaster Relief Reshaped for a New World," 12 THE PUBLIC LAWYER 1 (Winter 2004), describing the variety of available federal disaster assistance. For information on how to obtain a copy of this article, please see http://www.americanbar.org/utility/reprint.html.

    The Young Lawyers Division ("YLD") of the American Bar Association, as well as the YLD of most state bar associations, works closely with FEMA immediately following a disaster to provide legal assistance to those in need of help (see the ABA/FEMA Memorandum of Understanding).

    The NALP Foundation for Law Career Research and Education, the City Bar Fund, and the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, Fordham University School of Law published a report entitled "Public Service in a Time of Crisis" that documents pro bono efforts and assesses lessons learned in the course of the legal community's response to the events of 9/11.

    The ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility maintains the State Court Rules On Provision of Pro Bono Legal Services by Out-of-State Lawyers Following Major Disaster.

    The ABA Center for Pro Bono's website has a downloadable Disaster Legal Services Manual prepared by the State Bar of California's California Program Development Unit of the Office of Legal Services.