Day 8: Saturday March 18, 2006

Day 8: Saturday March 18, 2006 – Departure from New Orleans
As I prepare to leave New Orleans and return to Washington, I take a minute to reflect on the dozens of conversations I have had with people affected by Katrina. My cab driver who took me home the other evening from the internet café told me her story about how she lost her home and her new landlord keeps raising the rent. It was originally $600 for a 1BR apt, now it is $900 and it is about to go up to $1500 – which she can’t afford on a cab driver’s salary.

She says that a FEMA official told her that it might be best if she just moved somewhere else because New Orleans would no longer be a place for her to live. She thinks she may start living in her cab. I realize as I’m driving through the city with her, that I have only seen a handful of the notorious white FEMA trailers which are supposed to provide housing to the evacuees. We pass a parking lot full of the trailers, unoccupied because of bureaucratic red tape – she groans and asks me if I will help them when I return to Washington. When she dropped me off at the hostel, she waited for me to walk up the street and go inside because she was concerned about the safety in the neighborhood. I’m continually amazed by the kindness and concern people like her exhibit to me.

Even when I’m walking along Bourbon Street, I have the chance to speak to store owners when I buy souvenirs for my family. Several store owners told me that they no longer live in NO, they live in Houston but they return to NO a few days a week to run the store to make any money they can. They are so thankful for my business and ask me to tell my friends to shop there, because they depend on tourists like me. One shows me a beautiful picture of the canal that looks so peaceful on most days, except for that treacherous day in August.

I have talked to dozens and dozens of people native to New Orleans – waitresses, janitors, security guards, cab drivers, store owners – every singly one has a story to tell – every person I meet has been affected severely by Katrina. It is 7 months after Katrina, and many people still live in dire conditions, hopeless that the government will do anything to save them. I recall some of the t-shirts I see along Bourbon Street: “Make Levees, Not War”, “ReNew Orleans”, “Meet The Fockers: Ray Nagin, Kathleen Blanco, Michael Brown”, “Katrina Struck and all I got was this Cadillac and Plasma TV.” And of course, the everpresent “Re-build New Orleans.” This city is so beautiful, famous for its amazing food, soul, and “all that jazz” – it must be rebuilt, but how? When? By whom?

My plane lands at Dulles and the United Airline flight attendants make an announcement to everyone on the plane thanking all of the volunteers who spent the week in New Orleans working to make things just a little better. Everyone on the plane starts clapping and thanking us. Blushing, I’m deeply humbled by this beautiful gesture and say a small prayer of thanks for taking part in this extraordinary, inspiring, life-changing week.

Times-Picayune article

**This article was in Saturday's Times-Picayune (local New Orleans newspaper) specifically about the legal work my group did for the Right to Counsel Project this week!

http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/library-98/114266812231840.xml?nola

From the Times-Picayune

Katrina leaves inmates in limbo
Many still jailed are 'doing Katrina time'
Saturday, March 18, 2006
By Gwen FilosaStaff writer

Jamario Alexander Jr., a 19-year-old from New Orleans busted long before Hurricane Katrina on a Hollygrove street corner, might as well have pleaded guilty to a first-time possession of marijuana charge when he had the chance in April 2005.

Alexander already has served more than a calendar year -- twice the time of the maximum six-month sentence that the conviction carries, court records show. These days, he continues to rack up time served behind bars without ever having been tried, let alone convicted, of any crime.

The young man is one of thousands whose cases essentially froze when the floodwaters of Aug. 29 forced a massive evacuation from the 7,000-inmate parish prison.
In a borrowed federal courtroom this week, law students from across the country volunteered to sift through the parish's criminal docket system, a job likened to an archaeological dig, to not only create a post-Katrina database of pending cases, but also free defendants who already have served their time but remain trapped in the chaotic system where the few public defenders still on the job carry caseloads bordering 1,000 each.

The law students have seen cases in which people have been held after their release dates, some of whom should have been out before Katrina. Some have been held seven months longer than what the law allows.

'Clearly illegal'

"Others would have been released in a moment if they saw a judge," said Luke Sisak, 24, a third-year law student at the University of Southern California, on a recent afternoon as dozens of her colleagues painstakingly pored over records and laptops on the fourth floor of U.S. District Court. "They're doing Katrina time. It's pretty clearly illegal for the state to hold them longer."

"The most pressing need is to get people out of jail," said Sarah Thompson, a second-year law student at Suffolk University in Boston. "Because they're indigent, they don't know who to get a hold of when they're in jail."

Thompson, 22, made her first-ever visit to New Orleans this week for this project. The various inequities in criminal cases that she has seen since have made her gasp.

"Does the Constitution apply in Louisiana?" Thompson said. "I really had that thought. Not that I have a better system, but Katrina is not the problem. These problems were here long before. Katrina aggravated it."

Sisak and Thompson are part of the "Student Hurricane Network" of college volunteers destined for the battered region during this season of spring breaks. But instead of tearing out moldy, ruined Sheetrock, these law students are helping the law clinics of Tulane and Loyola universities comply with the criminal court's request to help sort out the population of defendants serving Katrina time.

"There was a time when we thought the cavalry was coming," said Pamela Metzger, a Tulane law professor advising the students on the database project, sparked by a court order from Chief Judge Calvin Johnson in an attempt to sort out the current docket. "Now we realize, we're the cavalry. In a post-Katrina world, there is no excuse for someone sitting in jail on a marijuana first or for public drunkenness or failure to pay child support."

Push for reforms
In spite of the disastrous state of the criminal docket, Metzger said Louisiana's top judges are poised to support making sweeping improvements in the criminal court system here, such as the Southeast Louisiana Criminal Justice Task Force, formed at the request of state Supreme Court Justice Catherine Kimball and state Attorney General Charles Foti.

Metzger and other New Orleans lawyers, such as Meghan Garvey, also have traveled to various Louisiana prisons, including Concordia and Avoyelles, in search of Orleans inmates shipped out of the flooded jail almost a week after Aug. 29.

'We were the first lawyers they had seen since weeks before the evacuation," Metzger said. "I talked to guys who didn't know why they were in jail. Some people had serious psychiatric problems."

Jamario Alexander, 18 when arrested on a Tuesday night by two officers patrolling his neighborhood, was among the mug shots and docket sheets the students catalogued this week.
As a teenager, Alexander fell into trouble before. He pleaded guilty in January 2005 for dealing cocaine in Orleans, a conviction in which he received five years -- all suspended -- and ordered to seek drug counseling. Police seized $11 from him at the time of his arrest and $217 from his cohort.

Alexander's was the type of case that Orleans Parish Criminal District Court dealt with in high volume, handing out suspended sentences and sending convicts to drug court instead of prison, before the floodwaters drowned 80 percent of the city and forced the court to relocate from its damaged building at Tulane and Broad.

In a separate case, from the same arrest, Alexander is charged with possession of cocaine, allegedly having a plastic baggie of rock-like powder in his pocket. He has a trial date set for later this month.

Alexander was locked up after two cops saw him throw down a plastic soda bottle, along with a plastic baggie, just after 8 p.m. on March 1, 2005, having spotted the police presence, court records show. During a search, police said they found the rocked-up cocaine in another baggie.
Alexander, held on a combined $16,000 bond for both drug charges, has had several scheduled court dates earlier this year, but hasn't made it in yet.

"Defendant is in custody of sheriff and was not brought into open court. He is in DOC (state) custody," a January minute entry explains.
. . . . . . .
Gwen Filosa can be reached at gfilosa@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3304.

Day 6

Day 6: Thursday March 16, 2006: Town Hall, Superdome, and Survival
Today I attend part of a New Orleans City Council meeting. Victims of police brutality testified about some of their experience with the NOPD. Administrators testify about the problems facing the city’s budget – they expect to be bankrupt around May because there are so few people paying taxes to sustain the budget and yet so many needs ranging from trash pick-up, street restoration, building repairs, etc. Much of the tourism is dead. The thousands of volunteers in the city have helped, but they are also needing hospital services in great quantities. I learn that 80% of the patients the local hospital are volunteers who have become sick from the mold, asbestos, air/water pollution, etc.

On my walk back from town hall, I detour a few blocks and walk by the convention center and the Superdome. My heart begins pounding and I flashback to the awful pictures on tv 6 months ago of the thousands of people swarming the sidewalk in front of the Superdome. I recall the horror stories of rape, beatings, and squalor as quality of life disappeared in the nightmare that became the Superdome. Now, the Superdome is clean and displays an enormous sign advertising that the New Orleans Saints will return in September and the Superdome will once again open to football fans. I can’t help but wonder what it will be like for fans to watch a football game in a place that is synonymous with Katrina horror stories.

As I continue walking, I see spray-painted “To EMS” graffiti along street signs with an arrow pointing towards the temporary Red Cross building – which still houses the Red Cross. “To EMS” decorates many of the garbage cans, tourist map signs, utility poles, and walls.


One of the students in our group tells us about the work she is doing with day laborers. She is bilingual and spends time surveying the Latino day laborers. She retells us the story about her conversation with one of the Latino day laborers who said to her, with tears in his eyes – I’m just trying to survive, are you just trying to survive?

Day 5: Wednesday March 15, 2006

Day 5: Wednesday March 15, 2006 –

Visit to the Lower 9th Ward
I just returned from spending a few hours in the lower ninth ward, I struggle to find the words to express my horror, my shock, dismay, anger, sadness, grief, and sympathy. I have never seen pictures of this part of the devastation before on television. Normally the footage shows houses that are falling apart, trees that fell through a roof, foundations that are breaking and the house slides off. That’s mostly what we saw earlier in the week and I was horrified by it. Today was even worse.


We drive right up to one of the levees that broke, cranes were at work repairing the levee today. And then we see the houses, what used to be the houses. Street after street we see foundations, just foundations. There are houses with stone steps leading to nowhere – the house’s entire structure was literally washed off the foundation. At first we wonder if these were areas that had been bulldozed, and then found out that this is just how they have been since the storm. What used to be hundreds of houses is now just a flat stretch of devastation and you can see all the way up to the levee.


As we drive a few minutes away from the levees, we see where the house structures had ended up – hundreds of houses were washed down streets, colliding with other houses and knocking them off their foundations as well. One house sits on top of a car, three houses on the corner have merged into one disaster. We drive down one road only to discover we couldn’t pass because of the house which came to rest in the middle of the road. It has a very “Wizard of Oz” type of feeling – except it is real and heart-wrenching.

We see signs in the neighborhood advertising a phone number for people to call to enroll in Medicaid. I’m reminded of the signs I saw on Sunday in the neighborhood of broken homes advertising mold clean-up and roof restoration. Here, there is little hope of finding your home, much less repairing your home. Some people spray painted their address on the sidewalk as to identify which foundation belonged to them.

I can’t even imagine how a person must feel to come back after the storm in search of your house – to turn the corner onto your street and not even recognize it because ALL of the homes have been completely washed away.

People ask me what it is like in New Orleans, can you still see the damage and destruction? I’m absolutely stunned by the lack of urgency to reconstruct the region. I’m amazed that 7 months later, thousands of homes sit in the streets, on other lots, or are in ruins. The kitchen floor remains, some teacups on a ledge, a shoe, a computer keyboard – this is all that is left of a home. I can’t imagine the pain these families must feel when they return to what used to be their neighborhood – and see such devastation that they no longer even recognize what used to be their home.

When we return to our hostel, we talk to some construction workers who drove in from Texas to try to get work rebuilding houses. They say that they have been in New Orleans for over a month trying to find work – but they are returning to Texas because no one is hiring construction workers. They reiterate what I thought earlier in the day – there is no urgency to rebuild.

Day 3: Monday March 13, 2006

Day 3: Monday March 13, 2006 – My Experience with the Right to Counsel Project
We begin our work today at 9am in the federal courthouse. The training is quite extensive and complicated, but I am learning SO much about the situation. Approximately 3500 people are incarcerated illegally. Many of these people have committed very minor violations – and yet are being held in jail for months and months.

In Louisiana, the District Attorney’s office has 45 days after a person’s arrest to decide whether they want to prosecute a case against them for a misdemeanor. At the end of the 45 days, the person is released if no charges have been brought. For a felony, the person can sit in jail for 60 days before a case is actually brought against them.

When the hurricane hit New Orleans, thousands of inmates were transferred from New Orleans jails to jails throughout the south – frequently without any paperwork stating why they were in jail, when they are supposed to be released, and without notifying the inmate’s family or attorney about where they are being transferred to. These inmates include people who never had charges brought against them as well as those arrested on very minor charges – like people who were arrested for traffic violations, people who were supposed to spend 1 night in jail for public drunkenness, failure to pay child support, DWI, first offense possession of marijuana, etc. We even worked on the case of one man who was arrested for leaving trash in the street!

In addition to these minor infractions, we came across MANY cases of inmates who had served far over the maximum sentence for their crime. For example, if someone plead guilty on June 1, 2005 to a drug charge and was sentenced to spend 3 months in jail, they are supposed to be released from jail September 1, 2005. However, when Katrina hit, they were transferred to another jail without paperwork – and are sitting in jail now for 9 months – far over the maximum sentence which may have been 6 months!

Some people have said to me that these inmates are better off in jail because at least they have shelter, food, and water – but Louisiana jails are notorious for their beatings, rapes, sodomy, and horrid conditions. Additionally, many of these inmates also lost their homes and family members, yet they are in jail and are unable to file paperwork to get insurance checks or federal assistance to rebuild their homes. Their family members have no idea where they are and they have no idea where their families are.

These inmates are almost always black, male, and poor – hence why they can’t afford to hire their own attorney and are reliant on the public defender’s system. The American Bar Association maximum standard for the number of cases a public defender can have is 200 cases per each public defender. The New Orleans public defenders are currently handling 900-1000 cases/attorney – far over what is humanly possible – hence this terrible problem of thousands of inmates sitting in jail illegally.

Before Katrina, the NO public defender’s office had about 35 attorneys. But, the office’s budget derives from the city’s traffic ticket payments. When there are no residents living in the city, there aren’t traffic tickets issued – hence the public defender’s office budget has been slashed and they laid off all but 5-6 public defenders.

This week we are working to create an enormous database of the inmates who still reside in jail and are recreating the documents that outline each inmate’s story – when they were arrested, when the charge was brought (or not brought), when bond was posted for them, when they were ordered to be released (and yet were not released), and what happened to them after Katrina. Because many of the files were kept in the basement of the courthouse, a lot of documents were lost – as well as a difficult sheriff’s office which won’t disclose much needed documents.

We discover that there are some inmates who were ordered to be released the week before Katrina, but were not and still remain in jail. Bond was posted for some the week before the storm and they were supposed to be released – but they still remain in jail.

Throughout the week we meet with federal judge Jay Zainey who has generously lent us his courtroom for our project while it is under renovation. He tells us about a case where 94 women (8 of whom were pregnant) were sent to Angola, an all-male maximum security prison for very minor charges, but were transferred during the storm to Angola – a place many consider to be like hell.

We learn about other inmates who were ordered to be released, but the jail refused to release them until they have enough inmates released to “justify” the expense of providing a bus to bring them back to New Orleans. Another jail came up with a creative solution to this problem – they said that they “lost” the inmates clothes and dropped them off on the side of the road miles and miles from a local town, without money, and without paperwork – dressed in their orange prison jumpsuits. Sure enough, a local police officer picked them up suspecting that they were escaped convicts – and brought them back to jail! I can’t help but wonder – does the Constitution exist in Louisiana?

So, I’m not helping to re-build homes, but I’m helping people regain their constitutional rights that have clearly been forgotten in the post-Katrina days. Granted, the Louisiana criminal justice system was broken long before the hurricane, but the storm severely exacerbated these problems and made life a living hell for the poorest of the poor in New Orleans prisons.

Sunday March 12, Day 2 in New Orleans

Day 2 - Sunday March 12

Today I am volunteering up at Loyola law school printing out the docket masters to use for our Right To Counsel project throughout the week. I spend the afternoon with a Loyola student, a 30 year old woman who lost her home in the storm. She is originally from New Orleans and she told me about how her home was destroyed, her mother’s home was destroyed, as well as her sister’s home. She said that the evacuation plan called for people to go to their relatives homes – but the homes of her relatives were all destroyed. She was able to get her 6 year old son out of their home safely but they weren’t able to bring their dog to the evacuation shelter.

By the time she could go back to the house, their beloved family dog was long gone. When they returned to her home, it was in ruins - she found a few toys and broken pieces of furniture, but most of it was washed away and destroyed. She is now in the process of re-building her life, her wardrobe, her home, and starting anew. I can see the pain in her eyes when she talks about the effect the storm has had on her son. He is old enough to know what is going on around him and to know that he lost his home and his dog, but not old enough to know what to do with these emotions or how to process them. She says that he is one step away from needing psychiatric help but those services just aren’t available yet, but she knows he will definitely need it.

I’m amazed by her fortitude, her strength, and her commitment to give so much of her time to the Student Hurricane Network. She thanks me for giving up my spring break to volunteer in New Orleans and expresses her appreciation for what I’m doing. I feel so privileged, I’m only giving up my spring break – a luxury that I have because I have the privilege of attending law school – I will leave after my trip and return to my home and my dog. She has so little, she needs so much and gives her time nonetheless, and yet she is thanking me for giving up something so insignificant as my spring break. I can’t imagine spending my spring break anywhere else.

Saturday March 11, Day 1 in New Orleans

Saturday night Mach 11, 2006 – Day 1
We arrived in New Orleans tonight, as soon as we walked off the plane the overwhelming smell of mold hit us like a wall. After a few hours you get used to it, but it is a constant reminder of the devastation that plagues the region six months after Katrina.

While on the plane we fly over Lake Pontchatrain, none of us are quite sure if it was the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico or the lake because it was enormous. It turned out to be Lake Pontchatrain, it is supposedly 32 miles across at its widest point. Tonight it looks so calm and peaceful, it is hard to believe that this body of water has caused so many problems. As I look out from the plane at the glistening water, my anger quickly returns. Of course, a storm cannot be prevented and a lake’s waters will naturally rise from a flood. But I cannot blame Mother Nature or this beautiful lake – I am struck once again with shame and disappointment in my government which allowed this disaster to reach this abysmal level.

I describe myself as a very patriotic person, I believe strongly in the ability of the American government to help people succeed and take care of its poor. Of course our system is not perfect and we have many flaws (health care, education, homelessness, affordable housing, poverty) – but at the end of the day, I believe that we are constantly working to make things better for those who are in need. After September 11th, the Bush administration went to great lengths to make us feel safe and secure and amazingly, we have not experienced another terrorist attack.

But here in New Orleans, the levees are being build to the same level they were before Katrina and with the same 1950s era design as before! Clearly this has not succeeded in protecting the New Orleans community, why is our government repeating its mistakes? Why did hundreds and hundreds of the poorest of our citizens die in flood waters simply because they had no way of going elsewhere and our government failed to help them? As we have seen from recent news stories, Bush was clearly aware of the possibility of the levee breach – and yet this nightmare took place on his watch. I have often supported President Bush in his foreign policy, security plans, even Iraq – but I have such little respect for his treatment of the poorest of the poor in the Gulf Coast.
--> Levees Being Repaired

Anyway, I could go on all day about my feelings about the matter – but my real effort is to describe my experience here in NO so I shall continue with that…After we cross the lake and begin our final descent, we fly over a very nice part of town with luxury homes and swimming pools in the backyard. This area was not flooded, but about ¼ of the homes have blue tarps on the roofs (like the one in this picture) to protect the residents from the elements after their roof was damaged or destroyed by wind, fallen trees, or debris. I am reminded once again of the widespread damage Katrina wreaked on so many people – and how long the communities remain debilitated.

On our drive to the hostel from the airport everything appears to be normal. We are greeted by an onslaught of campaign signs, reminding us of the controversial primary only a few weeks away. I recall seeing news stories of Ray Nagin and the other candidates campaigning in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, and Baton Rouge – because that’s where so many New Orleans voters reside.

As we get closer to the city, we reach the area which was flooded. The neighborhood our hostel is in was under 4-5 feet of water, the ubiquitous flood line is a constant reminder on all of the buildings of what happened in September. I’m amazed by the massive piles of debris lining the streets. We drive through streets full of sinkholes and tree limbs. In horror I see my first house that has completely collapsed from the floods – my heart jumps into my throat and I realize I’m holding my breath. I am immediately brought back to my days in third world countries like Ukraine where buildings were falling apart all around us. But this is 2006, this is the USA – how is this possible? Around the corner from this first home, I see another home with red spray paint indicating the people who were in it, where a dog hides under the house, and if it safe for people to enter.





We arrive at the hostel, it has been years since I have stayed a hostel so it has been an adjustment for me. I’m reminded again how much I take my everyday luxuries for granted – air conditioning, multiple functioning bathrooms in my home, furniture, a car, etc – I remember to take time to appreciate the little things in my life that I have come to expect and realize how very blessed and fortunate I am to never wonder how I will eat.

Our hostel is located about 10 minutes from the French Quarter, the neighborhood looks like a ghost town because very few residents and businesses have returned but the hostel employees tell us that the area used to be very active and populated. The hostel was under about 8 feet of water during the storm, there is a flood line on the walls outside.




There are two big beautiful palm trees in front of the hostel, but the tops were ripped off during the storm and landed on the roof of the hostel – destroying it. The hostel was closed for 3 months after the hurricane to replace the roof, gut the lower floor, and rebuild. I’m so surprised by how happy they sound describing the repairs they have done to the hostel – they are so excited and positive simply because they were able to re-open their doors and resume business within 3 months!

We go to dinner and are surprised by the tremendous wait – simply because the restaurant can’t hire enough people because so many employees were displaced by the storm. The bathrooms don’t work throughout the city because of the massive plumbing problems caused by the storm.

On our way back from dinner our driver forgets about the “what to do at non-working lights” stop signs and we’re almost in an accident. I’m amazed that it is now 6 months after the storm and there are still so many traffic lights without electricity on major intersections. It would be like the light at Wisconsin/Massachusetts not working for 6 months!

We listen to the radio and hear the hip hop station talk about rebuilding hip hop in New Orleans and does a story about the Congressional relief bill. Another radio station says “Rock New Orleans, Take that Katrina!”

Ready to leave for New Orleans!

We leave in 45 hours, I have such a mixture of feelings. I'm excited, anxious, nervous, passionate, and emotional about seeing the area firsthand and re-living how our country has failed these communities. I can't wait to get down there, meet people, hear their stories, take pictures and pitching in.

I just found out my placement assignment which I'm very excited about! In addition to cleaning up and repairing homes, I will be working with the Right to Counsel project. There are several thousand indigent defendants sitting in jail in New Orleans because there are not enough public defenders still living in the city to represent them in court. It's a huge problem of due process, right to counsel, and of course - disproportionately affects the poor.

We are staying at the India House Hostel www.indiahousehostel.com - looks pretty cute!

Here is the description of the rIGHT TO COUNSEL program so far:

PROJECT TRIAGE
Louisiana Right-to-Counsel Project
(Proposal Updated as of March 8, 2006, 3:00 pm)

Overview:

Over the next three weeks (March 6th through March 24th), law students will conduct the first stages of a massive triage and major criminal defense initiative. There are currently 4,000-5,000 indigent defendants from Orleans Parish in prisons throughout Louisiana who do not have any meaningful legal representation, and for whom there are no prospects of legal representation.

In partnership with the Tulane and Loyola clinical programs, criminal defense attorneys throughout Louisiana, and the Student Hurricane Network (SHN), this Project’s participants will develop an informational database of the status of criminal detainees in various sections of the Louisiana court system to be used in assessing what steps can be taken to address this crisis.

The Project will be conducted in three phases: (1) Project Triage volunteer trainings, (2) docket processing and database creation, (3) court visits and observation by Project workers.

Project Structure:

Phase One: Project Triage Volunteer Training Sessions

Trainings, to be conducted Monday, March 13, will provide Project Triage volunteers with the forms and information necessary to create the proposed database.

Phase One Logistical Requirements:
1. Identify facilities and defendants to be studied
2. Develop material for processing docket print-outs
2.1. Draft a “decoding guide” – training material that provides an explanation for how law student volunteers can review Orleans Parish criminal docket report print-outs
2.2. Draft a standardized form that law students can fill out when reviewing the criminal report print-outs
2.3. Develop protocol for processing print-outs
3. Plan March 13 training and docket processing event:
3.1. Locate site for event
3.2. Identify professors and attorneys to supervise event
3.3. Identify/compile set of docket print-outs law students will process
4. Other logistical requirements:
4.1. Identify SHN students that will be working on the Project
4.2. Create list of Tulane and Loyola students interested in working on the Project

Phase Two: Docket Processing and Database Creation

Project Triage law student volunteers will review the docket printouts from the Orleans Parish criminal court system and create a database of relevant information from March 14 to March 17.

Phase Two Logistical Requirements:
1. Identify sites/locations for docket processing workshops
2. Create supervision schedule for New Orleans-area attorneys who will be responsible for answering volunteers’ questions
3. Create centralized system for data entry and processing of completed forms
4. Secure food/catering for program, if necessary, and secure related funding

Phase Three: Court Visits

Project Triage law student volunteers will attend Orleans Parish criminal court and/or magistrate’s court in shifts over the course of the week (March 13 to March 17) in order to observe the ramifications of the project on the Louisiana court system

Phase Three Logistical Requirements:
1. Identify attorneys who will be utilizing database information and/or filing any related motions (including those not directly related to the Project)
2. Schedule Project volunteer students in shifts to travel to the related courthouses
3. Organize transportation to and from courthouses
4. Provide students with a feedback/informational form related to their courthouse visit.