When the Goin' Gets Tough, the Bar Gets Goin', 0114 COBJ, Pg. 5
| Author | W. Terry Ruckriegle |
IN AND AROUND THE BAR CBA PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE TO MEMBERS
W. Terry Ruckriegle
Colorado was hit hard with natural disasters in 2013. First, there were the spring wildfires, which affected many residential areas on the heels of the extensive wildfires of 2012. Then, and most recent, there were the floods resulting from the unusually intense rainstorms in September.
Although the fires were devastating, the vast area and extent of financial damage from the floods was record-breaking. In response to the needs of many Coloradans, the CBA partnered with several organizations to establish the Colorado Flood Legal Relief Task Force (Task Force). From there, a helpline— (855) 424-5347—and a website— colofloodlegalrelief. org—were created.
I want to share with you information behind the monumental effort put forth by bar members, staff, and numerous attorney organizations related to the Task Force. I interviewed four individuals who initiated and maintained the gathering of resources to make the flood legal relief effort a success.
Ahead of the Effort— Behind the Scenes
Philip Mervis serves as staff attorney for the Fifth Judicial District Courts. His primary responsibility is to provide research and writing assistance to the district court judges in civil litigation matters. However, there was a time when he was drafted into service on a particular criminal matter entitled People v. Kobe Bean Bryant. His technological skills helped pave the way for the national standard of posting pleadings on the Internet in high-profile cases to allow access by the public and media. Look for a profile of Mervis in the February issue of The Colorado Lawyer.
Sharon Mohr currently is on staff at the CBA and coordinates the flood legal relief efforts. She monitors the flood relief helpline, manages the volunteers and case assignments, monitors the website, and manages the FEMA appeals clinic. She previously founded and ran a nonprofit called Elder Justice Colorado, which provided free and low-cost legal services to low-income seniors in the Denver metro area. Mohr also supplied details, information, and statistics about the flood legal relief effort for this article, for which I am most grateful.
Margrit Parker is an attorney with Kennedy Childs P.C. in Denver, practicing professional liability defense of licensed professionals, including medical and legal malpractice. She also represents clients in employment law matters. Parker was heavily involved in creating the helpline for the wildfires and immediately volunteered to participate in the flood relief efforts. She used her extensive experience from the CBA disaster relief efforts for wildfires as a basis for rapidly mobilizing the flood relief team and volunteers.
Lance Timbreza practices law in Grand Junction at Traylor, Tompkins & Black, P.C, where he focuses primarily on commercial and real estate litigation. He is chair-elect of the CBA Young Lawyers Division (YLD) and serves as the American Bar Association (ABA) YLD District Representative for Colorado and Wyoming. He was contacted by the ABA Disaster Legal Services director and representatives to activate the flood relief effort in Colorado.
Gathering the Resources
The national and local initiative for collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) began a few decades ago. Even before the recent fires and floods, Parker's job as ABA YLD Representative in 2009 through 2011 was to ensure that Colorado had a current disaster legal response manual in place. That is precisely what she did when she d iscovered Colorado's manual had not been updated since 1994. In 2011, a working group of attorneys from the CBA, the Denver Bar Association (DBA), Colorado Legal Services (CLS), and the CBA YLD created an updated legal relief manual that became the template for disaster assistance during the wildfires and, now, the floods.
Timbreza explained that FEMA provides disaster legal services in conjunction with state and local bar associations, through a Memorandum of Understanding entered into with the ABA YLD. Once President Obama declared certain flooded portions of Colorado to be a natural disaster, the ABA YLD was charged with setting up a helpline within forty-eight hours.
On September 17, 2013, after a flurry of calls and e-mail exchanges, a group of bar leaders, along with attorneys and staff from several legal associations, conducted a conference call on how the CBA could participate in assisting flood victims. Representatives from CLS, the Colorado Legal Aid Foundation, the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association, the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, the Association of Corporate Counsel, Metro Volunteer Lawyers, the Colorado Department of Local Affairs, Colorado Spanish-Speaking Lawyers, CBA sections and committees, and many local bar associations participated in the continuing discussion about d evelopment of the relief effort.
Movement Toward Action
The two most pivotal decisions the Task Force made were to create a website and to bring on a staff person at the CBA to spearhead the flood legal relief efforts. The Task Force did more than just set up a helpline as required by FEMA; Mervis worked around the clock and— amazingly—had the initial website up and running in twenty-four hours. Using what he learned from the CBA's efforts to assist fire victims, he worked toward developing a website that would remove some of the obstacles to receiving or providing assistance. He believed that Web access and presence would enhance participation among victims and attorneys, allow for online data collection, and alleviate some of the burden that had been placed on attorneys and staff during the wildfire relief efforts. Further, according to Mervis, the website "allows the CBA to share flood-related legal information with the public through content summaries and news updates." For his part, Timbreza considers the website to be "the lifeblood" of this relief effort. He said, "I think it will set the standard for disaster...
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