Katrina's Aftermath: Business/Economy

Katrina's aftermath stymies Louisiana's judicial system

12:26 AM CDT on Friday, September 9, 2005

By BRAD TOWNSEND and LEE HANCOCK / The Dallas Morning News

Hurricane Katrina has turned Louisiana's legal system upside down.

The Louisiana Supreme Court building was flooded, and many critical files and evidence boxes are presumably destroyed. City and district court buildings in neighboring parishes have been similarly hit.

Lawyers and judges alike are scrambling to answer previously unimaginable questions: What will happen to pending cases? What about the out-on-bail defendants, witnesses and even law enforcement officials who are among the several hundred thousand evacuees sprinkled throughout the country, many in Texas?

Judge Patrick Higginbotham said the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – formerly based in New Orleans – will be back in business in Houston by next week.

But Katrina's aftermath will be "enormously disruptive" for the Gulf Coast region's state and local courts, he said.

"I don't think the tasks we face are nearly as difficult as those in the state courts in the Gulf Coast region," the Austin-based Judge Higginbotham said.

Louisiana State University law professor John Baker said the disruption is a "lesson about what many of us take for granted, of what it takes to function every day, of what it takes to keep a society together."

Mr. Baker had just returned from a classroom brimming with displaced students from New Orleans' Tulane and Loyola universities. Everyone, he said, left the room shaking their heads.

"It's not just the evidence, it's the witnesses," he said. "Where are the witnesses? Where are the defendants? How are you going to catch them?"

The day after Katrina hit, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued an emergency order freezing deadlines and court proceedings through at least today. On Tuesday, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, in response to requests from the state bar and other lawyers' groups, suspended all court proceedings statewide though Sept. 25.

"The destruction and disruption of services and infrastructure to our system of justice caused by Hurricane Katrina will have a profound impact on the basic rights to an untold number of persons unless action is taken," the governor's order stated.

Federal courts for the entire Southeastern region of the state issued a similar order, with no date set for reopening.

"The entire federal infrastructure has been displaced throughout the region," said one federal law enforcement supervisor, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity. "The courts have closed down."

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The FBI office in New Orleans had wind and water damage and soaked case files and other key records. Federal courts were shuttered with the evacuation, and all federal law enforcement operations had to move agents and operations to Baton Rouge, Shreveport and other offices across Louisiana.

Another daunting issue is trying to track people still being monitored by the criminal justice system who have been displaced by the storm.

"Where are the bad guys?" said the federal law enforcement supervisor. "And out of these millions of evacuees, I'm sure there are a number of them who are on parole, probation or are sex offenders who are now in the great state of Texas. What do you do about that?"

Lawyers have scrambled to re-create files, find a place to work and help clients with problems as basic as trying to determine whether their dwellings are still standing. On Wednesday, New Orleans lawyer Jeff Dye brought out two boats to take three doctor clients through their flooded neighborhood in the Garden District.

Mr. Dye said he stayed in the city to deal with legal business. Because he has a home office and his phone worked after the storm, he was able to resume his practice.

He and others said some law firms have bought and begun shipping computers to lawyers around the country, creating virtual offices. The state bar and other legal organizations are mobilizing volunteers to help disaster victims deal with bureaucracy and get the legal system back on track.

But Mr. Dye and others say at least one firm has had to let employees go, and another has begun downsizing its permanent staff because of income disruptions.

Still, not all the news is dire. Judge Higginbotham, who in July moved from Dallas to Austin, said the 5th Circuit's plan is to reopen next week in Houston and move to a suburb of Baton Rouge within 90 days.

At least one news report said that most of the 5th Circuit's files were in the New Orleans building's basement, which was flooded. But Judge Higginbotham said it is his understanding that files were not in the basement and that the building sustained "some seepage," but no major damage.

Outside New Orleans, the city's displaced lawyers began scrambling for office space wherever they landed. Some already had offices in Baton Rouge, and others quickly found space to serve as a home base for their far-flung partners.

Bob Rooth, a partner in the city's oldest firm, Chaffe McCall, said he's set up a temporary practice in a large Dallas law firm. He's enrolled his daughter in school in Dallas and plans to stay at least through the school year.

His firm's Baton Rouge office secured space for many of the New Orleans lawyers and staff and got a caravan of cars and trucks into New Orleans this week. They retrieved client files and computers from their Energy Center offices, getting through checkpoints into the city by securing passes from city officials and from clients already authorized to be in the city on emergency business.

Oil and gas litigation specialist Ralph White, who evacuated to Oxford, Miss., contacted friends in a local law firm and started working from their law library within two days. He said he brought none of his files but was able to start reconstructing them with help from electronic court databases, lawyers in other cities and opposing attorneys in his civil cases.

He said other lawyers in his 55-member firm, Montgomery Barnett, are scattered across the Southeast. Though they've been unable to get back into their offices in downtown New Orleans, they've been told that their files and equipment are intact.

"I'm on top of all my files, and I'm keeping up with all my cases, but it's been challenging," Mr. White said.

Staff Writer Bruce Nichols contributed to this report from New Orleans.

E-mail lhancock@dallasnews.com and btownsend@dallasnews.com