When disaster
strikes, will you know what to do?
By Roey Z. Rahmil
Member, CYLA Board of Directors
When one imagines the aftermath of
a natural disaster in the Bay Area, providing legal services may not be the
first need that comes to mind.
But experience has taught us that
residents affected by natural disasters do need lawyers who are prepared to help
them get housing, insurance and disaster assistance quickly. With that goal in
mind, the State Bar and the Alameda County Bar Association – in conjunction
with representatives from Bay Area Legal Aid, the Bar Association of San
Francisco and Pro Bono Net – have joined forces to establish the Bay Area
Resilience Collaborative (BARC).
BARC’s
aim is to educate lawyers, develop a volunteer corps of attorneys willing to
provide legal assistance at hotlines or disaster recovery centers and work with
state and local authorities and nonprofit organizations so that if and when
disaster strikes, the Bay Area legal community will be prepared to help.
To that
end, Practising Law Institute (PLI) will host a free course on Sept. 24, “Providing
Legal Assistance in the Aftermath of a Disaster.” It will feature a
distinguished range of panelists and addressing issues likely to arise in the
days and weeks following a disaster. The course will be streamed live, as well
as archived and available for free viewing (and Continuing Legal Education
credit) on PLI’s website.
Be prepared
The
motivating principle behind BARC is that the aftermath of a large-scale
disaster is no time to be putting on programs, building a corps of volunteer
attorneys or establishing a relationship with first responders and disaster
relief organizations.
“We’ve
known for a long time that California in general, and the Bay Area in
particular, is due for a significant earthquake,” explained Tiela Chalmers, CEO
of the Alameda County Bar Association. “After Superstorm Sandy, we were inspired
by our colleagues [in New York and New Jersey] and reminded again that it’s
really important to get planning pieces into place before a disaster of that
magnitude happens here.”
Learning
how to help
The CLE
course is intended for legal service providers and other attorneys interested
in volunteering in the wake of a disaster. It will cover the framework for
providing disaster legal services, types of pro bono opportunities,
post-disaster housing issues faced by tenants and homeowners, the insurance
claims process, working with federal disaster relief agencies, immigration
issues and consumer fraud and debtor issues. Speakers include partners at Bay
Area law firms, senior attorneys at legal services organizations and other
subject matter experts. Although it will cover some Northern
California-specific issues, the course is suitable for people from all parts of
the state.
Moving
forward (and moving south)
BARC’s
next steps are to “build out the plan so that all the institutional
participants are ready to roll in the immediate aftermath of a disaster,” said Sharon
Ngim, program developer at the State Bar. High on the priority list is working
to connect with other responders, such as the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), the Red Cross and the California Governor’s Office of Emergency
Services.
“First
responders can be concerned about lawyers barging in,” Ngim added, “and we want
to develop relationships so they understand that lawyers are there to provide
free legal services to survivors in need under the Memorandum of Understanding
between FEMA and the [American Bar Association’s] Young Lawyers Division, not
to chase ambulances.”
BARC
may be Bay Area-centric, but the State Bar doesn’t plan to stop there. “We hope
that the collaboration that we have developed can be replicated in whole or in
part in other parts of the state,” said Ngim.
Ngim
noted that nationwide, young lawyers’ groups including the ABA’s Young Lawyers
Division and the State Bar’s CYLA have been playing a significant role in
disaster preparedness planning, and that BARC and similar initiatives provide
unique opportunities for young lawyers to provide needed leadership to the
legal community.
For
more information on the course, visit the PLI website: http://www.pli.edu/Content/Seminar/Providing_Legal_Assistance_in_the_Aftermath/_/N-4kZ1z11qq8
Roey
Z. Rahmil is an associate at Shartsis Friese LLP and a member of the board for
the California Young Lawyers Association (CYLA). CYLA is the nation’s largest association
of young lawyers with more than 55,000 members.