Public service in a time of crisis: a report and retrospective on the legal community's response to the events of September 11, 2001.

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Public service in a time of crisis: a report and retrospective on the legal community's response to the events of September 11, 2001.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I. The New York Legal Community's Response to 9/11

Adversity almost always has a counterpoint. From scandal comes reform; from disease comes medical advance .... The tragedy with which we are coping has revealed the bar's deepest character, and that character is admirable.

--Evan Davis, Past President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

A. Introduction

The attacks on September 11, 2001 were unprecedented in scope, and the legal needs that grew out of the attacks were varied and far-reaching. This report summarizes the response of the legal community to these needs. The response was fast, thoughtful, comprehensive, and creative. And as a result, thousands of people were helped and thousands of lawyers were able to use their professional talents and skills in a manner that both led to important services being provided to people in need and resulted in great personal satisfaction.

More than 4,000 individuals and families who were affected by the disaster were represented on a pro bono basis by volunteer lawyers. Approximately 3,000 lawyers received 9/11 training through the City Bar and in-house law firm programs using City Bar resources and more than 2,800 lawyers registered on the ProBono.net 9/11 website to gain information and resources. The individuals and families who suffered loss had significant needs.

Survivors had to adjust to the unexpected loss of their loved ones. They also had to oversee numerous other depressingly practical details including arranging funerals and burials, balancing financial obligations, applying for aid, administering estates, applying for death certificates, etc. Other victims (1) had more basic financial needs--between 3,000 and 6,000 individuals and families were displaced from their homes, hundreds of businesses were destroyed, and more than 100,0000 people, by some estimates, lost their jobs. Still other victims had immigration, deportation, and discrimination fears. In response to 9/11, the institutions that make up the New York area legal community collaborated in ways never previously imagined. Where turf battles once existed, cooperation prevailed.

The City Bar took the lead in organizing and coordinating the relief effort, serving as the central coordination point for a large majority of the legal community's individual relief initiatives. Individual lawyers from all practice areas and all firm sizes poured forth in unprecedented numbers to provide day-to-day counseling and legal advice. A "Facilitator" concept was developed to provide comprehensive service to each client, eliminating the need for the client to find multiple sources of legal expertise. Technology was utilized in the intake and referral of new clients and to share information among lawyers providing 9/11 services. You will find in this report a summary of these efforts. In Part I, we describe what we considered to be the overarching keys to the efforts--what we call the Foundations. These included the collaborative efforts of many legal service providers, the City Bar serving as a central hub to provide overall coordination, the creation of the Facilitator Project, the training that was developed, and the key role of technology.

In Part II we discuss some of the specific projects that were implemented to assist clients, and in Part III we summarize the ongoing efforts and some of the unmet needs. These sections constitute the bulk of the report. The projects that were created were interesting, thoughtfully structured and ultimately very useful to the victims. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the reality is that not all needs were identified early enough and not all needs identified were met. Lawyers are, however, continuing to work on providing additional assistance to meet ongoing needs.

Parts IV and V describe the results of surveys we undertook of lawyers and law firms. A total of 293 lawyers completed an online survey, and twenty law firms and corporations answered questions about their 9/11 efforts. While the survey respondents were only a small sample of the total universe of lawyers and law firms that provided pro bono services, the data does provide insight about the volunteer lawyers and their experiences.

Finally, in Part VI we have attempted to distill and identify some of the lessons that the experience of responding to 9/11 has taught us as a legal community. Eighteen such lessons are identified in three broad categories: the community aspects of the response, the more practical aspects of responding to a disaster, and finally, ways in which the 9/11 relief effort could have been improved. Common themes running through the report and the lessons learned include the usefulness of coordination and collaboration, the vital importance of nonprofit legal services organizations, the value of innovation and flexibility, and the willingness of large groups of lawyers to volunteer to help those in need. Suggestions for improving fut...

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