Law Students Break for Gulf Relief

Students from Harvard Law School (HLS) headed to the Gulf region over winter break to provide relief services to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In addition to the 25 students who volunteered in Louisiana and Mississippi, seven more spent their breaks working for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in Washington, D.C.

Students worked with a number of local and national organizations that provide free legal services, including The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF), Common Ground, and New Orleans Legal Assistance.

The trips were sponsored by the Law School and coordinated by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs and the Student Hurricane Network.

They worked on a broad range of issues including helping with housing problems, performing intake services for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and analyzing data on the impact of Katrina on the criminal justice system.

“In the mornings we conducted legal research and went out on wild goose hunts criss-crossing the city for random bits of information and crucial documents,” Amy G.S. Chen, a third-year law student with PHRF, wrote in an e-mail. “In the evenings we donned rubber chemical boots and schlepped across ditches, past burning trash cans, through ankle-deep mud to interview workers camping out in a makeshift tent city in City Park.”

David I. Sclar ’02 volunteered with Common Ground, a group that performs a wide-range of services such as aiding those facing eviction and helping Katrina victims deal with FEMA.

“Everybody volunteers where they want to get involved that day,” Sclar wrote in an e-mail. “[This] allowed me to pick and choose the work that I felt was most rewarding and where I could make my greatest impact in a short period of time.”

Students contacted by The Crimson universally told of the breadth of destruction in the Gulf region, and how many of those currently in need of assistance are not necessarily Katrina survivors.

The PHRF was attempting to set up a worker’s rights clinic, Chen wrote, and that her interviews with workers illuminated the problems faced by those recruited to the region with promises of work.

“The workers came from Texas, Mississippi, Florida, and other parts of Louisiana. I would estimate that more than half of the workers we spoke to had outstanding wage and hour claims—for the most part shady contractor or subcontractor outfits who promised them one wage but ended up paying another, failed to pay overtime, made illegal deductions and, the issue that came up perhaps most frequently, just skipped town without paying up at all,” Chen wrote.

“[And] this is to say nothing about conditions in the camp, which boasted—until the second day we were there, when management trucked in more—only about a dozen port-a-potties, a single water spigot, and $5/[a]piece showers at facilities across the street.”

Ehren J. Brav, a second-year law student who worked with New Orleans Legal Assistance, said that attempting to track down clients was one of the largest problems he faced.

“I spoke to New Orleans residents in Texas, Nevada, Oklahoma, and Mississippi,” Brav wrote in an e-mail. “They’re constantly on the move between residences and cities.”

While all the students spoke of the challenges that the region faced, Sclar was quick to point out that he found hope in working with Common Ground, and that the trip was a “great experience” that he would recommend to other Harvard students.

“People travel to Common Ground from all over—I met people who biked down to New Orleans wearing superhero uniforms and helping others along the way,” he wrote. “There are a lot of challenges that come with communal living, but what most impressed me was the collective energy and flexibility and the fact that the organization continues to thrive as waves of volunteers come and go.”

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.