Last night

Our amazing week in the Big Easy is drawing to a close. We have had a wonderful experience and I think every single person feels the impact of being here in New Orleans at this important moment in time.

I will wrap up my personal experience working with the Innocence Project of New Orleans. This organization works to free innocent people wrongly convicted of crimes. I therefore was not working directly on post-hurricaine issues as much as other groups. I was, however, able to do some very interesting research which actually led me to some interesting discoveries regarding floods and levy breaches from several decades ago. I have felt quite Erin Brocovich because we were sent out to a country library to do research, but were not supposed to tell anyone what we were looking for, as we do not want to bring attention to the case before we are ready. I am a history buff, so I found the research (which mostly consisted of looking at old parish newspapers) very interesting. We returned to the office and I researched and wrote a memo on another issue. I liked the people I worked with and enjoyed my job, although at times I wished that I was more in the trenches of hurricaine-related issues. I think my project was the only one not directly related to hurricaine issues, which makes me happy. I just look at my work putting this trip together as my sweat equity for Katrina, and I was glad to be here and be a part of it all. I am attaching a photo of my boss-for-the-week.

I did, as promised, get a few other people to write about their experiences and will post them below. More to come. (It will be forced bloggging on the bus ride tomorrow.)

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This trip, honestly, has been one of the most eye-opening and profound experiences of my life. It has been a roller coaster of laughs, smiles, deep sympathy, and, most of all, hope. I came down here on a leap of faith. I didn’t know exactly where I would be or what I would be doing. But my time here has been spent productively and my faith in the people that coordinated this trip paid off. I had the opportunity to work with Terrell Broussard in figuring out possible constitutional challenges to a recently amended Louisiana statute that has narrowed the number of judges in the Orleans parish. Yes, the population here has dwindled. Yes, legislators have to keep in mind issues of judicial efficiency. But the fact of the matter remains that people need access to the courts. African-American judges are the norm in the New Orleans trial system. Decreasing the number of judges obviously means that there will be a diminishing of African-American judges. And the Constitution, along with the Voting Rights Act, has something to say about that. In just a week, I have been reminded of reasons why I applied to law school in the first place.

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The silence in some parts of the 9th Ward, and the Lower 9th Ward in particular, is deafening. But I honestly believe that New Orleans has the hope within the city to revitalize it. I have been so humbled by the opportunity to play a small role in helping New Orleans in a post-Katrina world, and for me, this is only the beginning of doing all that I can to help.

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I love my ASB team! I did succession work and I am happy about the fact that I might have made progress on cases that have been open for a long time. I’m usually more of the “stay home and study” person, but I enjoyed volunteering time that I probably would have wasted if I had spent it at home. Things were crazy at times and nothing was predictable; being here was certainly a lesson in flexibility J