N.O. Problem

Arriving in New Orleans (N.O.), LA in the daylight was a completely different experience than the late evening trek we made from Biloxi, MS back in December. In the daylight it was clear from the highway just how devastated the area was… even almost a year and a half after the storm. Driving above the wreckage we could see neighborhood after neighborhood of once homes, now barely assembled shacks, most without roofs, walls or windows. Some of the blocks had also been completely blackened by fire or leveled to the ground.

Coming here I wanted to help. While volunteering back in Biloxi we had a lot of interactions with people in the local community doing surveys about grant & loan dispersements from federal and state agencies. Seeing how grateful these people were for the limited help we could provide as volunteers was definitely a motivating factor in my decision to spend another week in the Gulf Coast area.

I feel blessed that I have been so privileged in life. I am (reasonably) intelligent, active and able to work. My ability to study the law and enter this profession creates an enormous sense of responsibility in me to use this education and influence to help others who have been less fortunate in life.

Listening to Fed. Dist. Ct. Judge Zainey, here in N.O., tell his frontline stories about lawyers’ impact in this community was very inspiring. The staff and volunteer attorneys working here at the Pro Bono Project are also amazing individuals. Hosting 49 students at law firms around the city this week has been a hugely stressful undertaking for their office of six staff attorneys; Yet they have been very gracious, encouraging, and efficient in training us to work on pending cases.

Today was my first day volunteering in N.O. Currently, I am working in the family law division on IN FORMA PAUPERIS (poor folk) uncontested divorce cases for the Pro Bono Project; I am placed in the Murray Law Firm at 909 Poydras Street. My supervising attorney, Jessica Hayes, has been very kind and helpful… Well… okay, since about 2:30pm this afternoon. :) We first met around 1pm but we didn’t talk much before she submitted her (almost late) appellate brief… She was very very busy frantically typing... Déjà vu?! (It turns out the procrastination tactics you master in law school carry over into real practice too!)

I currently have four cases in different stages of the divorce process. Some need personal service certification, motions filed with the court, or one last client signature to finalize the proceedings. Sadly, these cases have been passed around to volunteer lawyers for so long that some have been pending years when they only needed 30 days. I have a client coming in tomorrow to finalize a truth affidavit that will allow us to file a motion for default and finalize her divorce that has been pending since January of 2006. Finalizing these proceedings seems merely clerical to some, but to the individuals involved it makes all the difference in the world. (Financial freedom, future investments/property, future family planning, child support, credit ratings, etc.)