Join FCBA Lawyers In Providing Hurricane Katrina Relief

The Fresno County Bar Association is organizing an effort to collect donations to provide relief to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina. This staggering tragedy is affecting all segments of the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama communities, including the legal community. To assist the American Red Cross with its tremendous efforts in providing for the immediate needs of the hurricane survivors, FCBA will receive and collect donations from Fresno County and surrounding area attorneys for the American Red Cross from now through November 15, 2005. FCBA will then provide a single donation check to the American Red Cross. This effort assists the American Red Cross in soliciting donations as well as processing donations, both of which rely on volunteer efforts.

Please make your donation check payable to the FCBA with a notation that it is for the FCBA American Red Cross Hurricane Katrina. Send the check to: FCBA American Red Cross Hurricane Katrina/1221 Van Ness Ave., Ste. 300/Fresno, CA. 93721-1720.

For a sense of how this disaster is impacting the legal community here are a few excerpts from an email by a Southern University Law Center professor.

“5,000 - 6,000 lawyers (1/3 of the lawyers in Louisiana) have lost their offices, their libraries, their computers with all information thereon, their client files - possibly their clients, as one attorney who e-mailed me noted. As I mentioned before, they are scattered from Florida to Arizona and have nothing to return to. Their children's schools are gone and, optimistically, the school systems in 8 parishes/counties won't be re-opened until after December. They must re-locate their lives.

Our state supreme court is under some water - with all appellate files and evidence folders/boxes along with it. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals building is under some water - with the same effect. Right now there may only be 3-4 feet of standing water but, if you think about it, most files are kept in the basements or lower floors of courthouses. What effect will that have on the lives of citizens and lawyers throughout this state and this area of the country? And on the law?

The city and district courts in as many as 8 parishes/counties are under water, as well as 3 of our circuit courts - with evidence/files at each of them ruined…

…Our Committee on Bar Admissions is located there [New Orleans] and would have been housing the bar exams which have been turned in from the recent July bar exam (this is one time I'll pray the examiners were late in turning them in - we were set to meet in 2 weeks to go over the results). Will all of those new graduates have to retake the bar exam?

Two of the 4 law schools in Louisiana are located in New Orleans (Loyola and Tulane - the 2 private ones that students have already paid about $8,000+ for this semester to attend). Another 1,000+ lawyers-to-be whose lives have been detoured….”

Professor Michelle Ghetti
Southern University Law Center
Baton Rouge, LA

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DONATE TODAY!