American Bar Association President Patricia Lee Refo sent a letter this week to the leaders of the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee. She urged them to exercise their oversight authority over FEMA and ask the agency to promptly activate and implement the Disaster Legal Services program in each requesting state and territory to help address the many unmet legal needs of low-income Americans suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Disaster Legal Service attorneys are volunteers — not FEMA employees — who provide disaster survivors with essential legal counseling and advice, and if necessary, legal representation for non-fee generating cases. For nearly 50 years, the ABA Young Lawyers Division has coordinated with the federal government to provide critical help to survivors of hundreds of natural disasters affecting nearly every state and territory.
Read the full letter here.
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