Linda Anderson Stanley
The guidebook was co-edited by Stephanie Duke, a staff attorney at Disability Rights Texas, and Linda Anderson Stanley, a senior program manager at the Equal Justice Works, as well as director of Disaster Legal Services at the ABA's Young Lawyers Division.
Here, Law360 Pulse talks with Stanley about the creation of the guidebook, the motivations behind it and what it covers.
What prompted you to create this guidebook?
As climate-related disasters strengthen, there's really a greater need for resources and support to help individuals and families navigate legal challenges that are surrounding disasters. And as I'm sure you know, millions of Americans can't afford legal assistance when they are facing these kinds of life-changing situations and the unpredictability of disasters, so they have to navigate these complex legal situations on their own, and legal service organizations don't always have the ability to increase their capacity to respond to all of these needs after a disaster. So Equal Justice Works of course believes that everyone should have equal access to justice, not just those who can afford to have legal representation. But we've really just strived to mobilize lawyers who are passionate about public interest law and provide them with opportunities to make a difference in communities across the country and really instill a lifelong commitment to a career in public service.
So this guidebook not only serves as a tool for our current fellows and new fellows as they come on board, but there are entire host organizations for pro bono attorneys working alongside them and anyone interested in assisting disaster survivors. A tool like this can really increase organizational capacity to assist disaster survivors with their legal needs and really help maintain institutional knowledge when the next disaster occurs. There's not really anything like this out there on a national level right now. There are a lot of great statewide resources, but we really wanted to make sure that there's kind of this one central place where folks can go to and have this overview of disaster assistance available. And of course we've also linked to those great statewide assistance programs as well.
Was a big part encouraging people to engage in pro bono disaster work?
Absolutely. So this was a partnership between Equal Justice Works and the ABA Young Lawyers Division Disaster Legal Services program. So we really want to have something that we can put in front of folks that says this is how to assist a disaster survivor. And so we want to be able to have pro bono attorneys who can assist with the DLS team or with our Equal Justice Works fellows. Or, as new attorneys come on board and a disaster strikes, there's this go-to material that they can look at and just jump right in.
Does disaster lawyering touch upon a wide breadth of law?
Disaster law pretty much touches on anything that you can think of, so I like to say that you do not need to be an expert in disaster law to assist a disaster survivor. If you think that your field of expertise does not come into play when there's a disaster, you're probably wrong and there's probably a place for you. So there's no prior experience necessary. And we also have this guidebook, for example, to assist if you want to work on something that is a bit outside your comfort zone. For example, it walks you through how to do a FEMA appeal, which is an administrative type of law, federal, not anything that's state-specific.
What does the guidebook cover generally?
The guidebook provides pro bono and legal aid attorneys — and other disaster stakeholders, of course — with an overview of disaster assistance and resources that are available after a disaster and best practices. So we have an introduction to the major disaster declaration process, the types of federal assistance that become available after a disaster declaration and common types of legal issues before, during and after a disaster.
There's a chapter providing tips to practitioners navigating FEMA, individual assistance programs, there's some national insights and resources on housing and housing litigation and preparedness. There's a chapter on the Small Business Administration disaster loan program, discussion on consumer issues that could arise after a disaster. There's a chapter on equitable access to disaster services if anybody is assisting individuals with disabilities. There's a chapter on FEMA recoupment, just to keep everybody aware that FEMA could potentially come back later and try to take money from your clients. There's also lengthy chapters on immigration and disaster preparedness, immigration status for crime victims ... this is really one community that's often left behind in disaster preparedness and recovery resources.
And then we also cover the really important piece of collaborating with community advocates and organizations in times of disaster, as well as how to engage law students in the aftermath of a disaster. And we also have that state-specific legal resources section.
Any key takeaways from the guidebook for you?
I guess I was surprised that there has not been a collective nationwide version of this to date. So I did do a lot of research to make sure that it did not exist, and there are other tools and things of course like the Legal Services Corp. disaster taskforce report which gives really good guidelines to folks on how to prepare for disaster. But there's not really this manual or guidebook of sorts on how to be a disaster lawyer basically. So I think that was my biggest surprise, but everything else kind of fell into place pretty easily.
--Editing by Marygrace Anderson.
All Access is a series of discussions with leaders in the access to justice field. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.
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