Tulane Law School students Galen Hair (left) and Morgan Williams (right) are helping New Orleans resident Chandra Green with various post-Katrina legal issues, including finding adequate housing and resolving insurance settlements. (Photo by Rick Olivier)

Perhaps a match made in heaven? Twenty-eight survivors of Hurricane Katrina in the greater New Orleans area are getting their heads above water in meeting their legal challenges by being paired with volunteer law students from around the country.

A program of the Student Hurricane Network, co-founded by Tulane third-year law student Morgan Williams with Janell Smith, a third-year law student at Howard University, Matchmakers for Justice works with partner organizations to provide law students and area residents with necessary informational materials. The network arranged a number of support structures for both residents and students, including survivor council meetings, student support group teams, professor mentors for each law student, cultural competency advisers and legal aid referral advisers.

Law students, lawyers and Katrina survivors came from around the country to participate in the first Matchmakers for Justice all-day training session on Sept. 9 at St. Jude Church in New Orleans. The session featured workshops led by law professors, local attorneys, licensed social workers, community relief organizations and local residents.

The M4J program, as Williams calls it, paired selected law students with displaced residents to help resolve the residents' post-Katrina challenges. Participation in the pilot program is a six-week commitment. The overall goal of the program is to empower residents to address challenges in securing quality jobs, education, health care and housing. Each law student documents the specific challenges faced by the resident to attorneys.

"Matchmakers for Justice is connecting residents with breakthrough legal resources for area residents wronged by post-Katrina failings," says Williams, who notes that the residents are learning skills to become their own advocates and gathering resources that can be passed along to other residents in need of help.

Williams recently received the 2006 Pro Bono Publico Award from PSLawNet, the Public Service Law Network Worldwide, a network of more than 170 law schools and 11,000 law-related public interest organizations of NALP, the association for legal career professionals.

Williams accepted the LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Exemplary Public Service Award and $5,000 prize for the Student Hurricane Network at the Equal Justice Works Awards dinner on Oct. 19 in Washington, D.C. Equal Justice Works was founded in 1986 by law students dedicated to working for equal justice on behalf of underserved communities and causes.

Galen Hair, a first-year law student at Tulane, is paired with Chandra Green, a mother of three children, whose New Orleans home is uninhabitable after Hurricane Katrina. With the assistance of a team of attorneys and social work professionals from throughout the region and across the country, through weekly conference calls, Hair is helping Green navigate legal issues related to FEMA and insurance. For the beginning law student, this is his first direct experience with a displaced resident working to get back on her feet.

"It's stressful because there's a lot I don't know about civil procedure in Louisiana," says Hair, who is from Texas via Boston University. "She has multi-faceted issues. I'm making phone calls and working to locate resources on her behalf. What surprises me the most is how some insurance companies are acting toward New Orleans residents. But, despite all their problems, the residents are optimistic."

Hair is having trouble finding a Louisiana lawyer to take the case because most lawyers in the hurricane-stricken area have reached their maximum pro bono caseloads.

Matchmakers for Justice law partners include Tulane University School of Law, Southern University Law Center, John Marshall Law School, University of Baltimore Law School, South Texas College of Law, Georgetown Law School, University of California-Los Angeles School of Law, Mississippi College School of Law, Seton Hall University School of Law, American University School of Law, Texas Wesleyan School of Law, Florida State University School of Law, Howard University School of Law, University of Colorado-Boulder School of Law, Harvard Law School, Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University, University of Florida School of Law and the University of Houston Law Center.

Matchmakers for Justice community partners include Rhode Island Legal Services; New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation; Loyola Law Clinic; NAACP-Southeast Legal Services; law offices of Colette Pichon Battle; ProBono Project, Mississippi Center for Justice; People's Institute for Survival and Beyond; Advocacy Project; the Louisiana Bar Association; ACORN; Common Ground; Hope House; Mercy Corps; Neighborhood Housing Services; New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund; People's Hurricane Relief Fund; People's Organizing Committee; United Front for Affordable Housing; Unity for the Homeless; Moving Forward Gulf Coast Inc.; and other local and national organizations.

For more information about Matchmakers for Justice, send an e-mail to: Matchmakers4justice@gmail.com.