Baton Rouge Bar Association Response to Hurricane Katrina

Dear Friends,

All of us in the Baton Rouge area extend our hopes and prayers to those of us with family and friends in the areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. In these last two or three days, we have been working at the Middleton Bar Center to assist lawyers throughout the state and the people who will be seeking refuge in Baton Rouge. At this point, we are the largest Bar Association that has an operational office in this state, and we intend to make our assets available to help everyone we can.

From the start, we have offered the Louisiana State Bar Association any and all assistance we can give. The LSBA President is Frank Neuner of Lafayette, but the LSBA office in New Orleans is inaccessible. We provided the LSBA with unlimited use of our staff conference room, and we are making our entire facility as available as possible, while still meeting our core responsibilities to our local members. The LSBA can restore its communications once it can get access to its servers. Since Tuesday, we have been receiving inquiries from state and local bar associations throughout the country, offering assistance and support in every possible way. In order to receive funds, the Baton Rouge Bar Foundation will be accepting monetary donations in any amount for deposit into an account in a local bank to provide monetary aid to lawyers who have lost their homes and offices in the storm. Checks should be payable to the Baton Rouge Bar Foundation; please note on the check "LSBA Hurricane Relief." As soon as the Louisiana State Bar Foundation members can be assembled (many are displaced as well), the exact criteria for disbursements to those in need will be established. As soon as the Foundation is operating from its remote office, all funds will be turned over (and we will continue to collect and remit funds and provide receipts for as long as the money comes in). Please note this money is not being used for just those lawyers who have to relocate to Baton Rouge, which is why the disbursements will be handled by the statewide organization. (For those who wish to make monetary donations for the general public, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation (http://www.braf.org) has two separate funds designated for displaced people in Baton Rouge and recovery efforts in New Orleans).

In addition, the BRBA will be hosting a hotline at our office that will be run by the Louisiana State Bar Association, American Bar Association's Young Lawyers Division, and the Baton Rouge Bar Association to provide free legal assistance to those displaced by the hurricane. The panel of these volunteers will be assembled by the Young Lawyers Division to work with people on a statewide basis.

Locally, the BRBA is trying to coordinate efforts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross to be trained in connection with the forms that the displaced people, particularly those living in the emergency shelters, will need to complete in order to obtain assistance. Because the access to this information will be limited at the shelters, our plan is to assemble teams of BRBA members who can staff tables; this is perhaps not legal help in its purest sense, but just fresh eyes and sharp minds being lent to some people who are in desperate need. More information on this initiative will be forthcoming once the details are ironed out. If you are interested in signing up for this volunteer work, please reply to this email and ask to be signed up on the list that we will begin to construct today.

Finally, the BRBA will serve as a clearinghouse for any lawyers who wish to provide or rent space to displaced lawyers. If you have any space that you could provide on a short-term basis, please reply to this email with details on the space, your exact location, and phone numbers where you can be reached (night and day, if possible), and we start our "supply list". Our ability to reach these lawyers who have been displaced is quite limited with email at this point, but word of mouth will likely lead to a flood of calls from lawyers from the areas who have lost the use of their offices due to the flood. Please have any lawyer who may need help from us call the Bar Center at 344-4803 to be put on the "needs list."

The members of the Baton Rouge Bar Association are special group of people, and our Association is recognized as one of the finest in the country. There has perhaps never been a greater need to which we can respond. Please, sign up for these programs, volunteer at the shelters, donate money, take in a lawyer, and help any way that you can.

Gregory E. Bodin,
President, Baton Rouge Bar Association

Ann G. Scarle, Executive Director
Baton Rouge Bar Association
P. O. Box 2241
Baton Rouge, LA 70821
Phone: 225-214-5563
Fax: 225-344-4805