To Pro Bono Coordinators and Other Interested Colleagues
To Pro Bono Coordinators and Other Interested Colleagues:
Over 1,635 lawyers have volunteered through www.abanet.org/Katrina, the American Bar Association Hurricane Disaster Relief Website, to help victims of the Katrina Hurricane in need of legal assistance. More lawyers are volunteering every day.
And, we are pleased to announce that the new Katrina Legal Aid Resource Center site, sponsored by the American Bar Association, the Legal Services Corporation, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association and ProBonoNet, is now available at www.katrinalegalaid.org.
These websites offer both the opportunity for lawyers to volunteer and access to a significant and growing library of information that is helpful to victims of Hurricane Katrina and the lawyers who want to help them.
If your program is in need of volunteer lawyers to assist in Hurricane Katrina disaster relief efforts in your service area, please contact Cheryl Zalenski (zalenskc@staff.abanet.org), Melanie Kushnir (kushnim@staff.abanet.org) or Bill Jones (jonesw@staff.abanet.org) of the ABA Center for Pro Bono. The Center can provide names and contact information for volunteer lawyers who meet your criteria, so you can contact them as you need them.
As you know, disaster relief legal assistance projects are being coordinated at the state and local levels in the affected regions and the evacuee states. As local legal assistance and pro bono organizations and the coordinators of the Young Lawyers Division-FEMA Legal Assistance Hotlines indicate to us their needs, we are providing them with the names of volunteer lawyers who best can respond to those needs. Over 590 lawyers have volunteered through the ABA Website to staff YLD-FEMA Hotlines, and many names have been sent to the coordinators of the Hotlines, who will contact those volunteers as their programs expand to meet the needs of the region.
In many instances, we have already been able to provide other state and local pro bono coordinators and other organizations with the names of volunteers who can be immediately helpful. In other cases, coordinators have indicated that they are unable to absorb and deploy additional volunteers at this time. The coordinators are still developing the process of organizing and delivering the legal assistance that will be needed in their communities. As they do so they will contact volunteers in and for the areas they serve.
Please let us know if we can assist you.
Regards,
The American Bar Association Center for Pro Bono,
a project of the ABA Standing Committee on Pro Bono and Public Service
http://www.abanet.org/katrina/