Briana Green
Director, Judicial Clerkships, Public Interest & Government Programs
University of Maryland School of Law

While many law students use their semester break as an opportunity to relax and recover from final exams, students at the University of Maryland School of Law spent their last three Winter and Spring recesses lending a helping hand to the devastated residents of New Orleans and Mississippi through the Student Hurricane Network’s Gideon Indigent Defense and Building Projects. 

In March, 2006, about 30 Maryland law students traveled to New Orleans where they partnered with Catholic Charities' Operation Helping Hands project to rebuild homes for families in St. Bernard Parish. Students spent the week removing rotten furniture, walls, and fixtures from severely damaged homes belonging to elderly residents and people with disabilities.  First-year law student Stephan Stohler noted the many-layered challenges to rebuilding: "Resources are precious," he said. "In St. Bernard Parish there's one store open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for the whole neighborhood. You can't build a house if you don't have a job. And you can't work if you don't have a home."

Maryland students have been part of the Student Hurricane Network’s more than 2,700 law student volunteers from across the country who have worked in Louisiana and Mississippi.  Not only have students flexed their physical muscles, they’ve also applied their burgeoning legal knowledge through SHN’s organization.  More than 50 Maryland law students, for instance, spent their January 2007 break interviewing jailed prisoners on behalf of the city’s few remaining public defenders.  They pored over case files for defendants awaiting trial, interviewed people recently arrested and helped defenders represent clients in court.   

Maryland Professor, Doug Colbert, who supervised the students along with volunteer lawyers from the Maryland Public Defender office, observed that “students’ growth was enormous.  First-year students developed the skills of a third-year student by week’s end.”  Students, too, recognized that their work was crucial. “You try to develop a rapport with the client in a short time,” said Sandra Goldberg, a law student from Montgomery County, Maryland. “You ask questions about them and their family. If I can make a difference in one case or give someone hope that they’re not being forgotten, I’ll feel like the trip has been worthwhile.” 

Maryland students returned from their three trips in 2006 and 2007, the School of Law held a forum where student volunteers shared their experiences.  Dean Karen Rothenberg greeted the students and praised student leaders. "They were determined that these trips to New Orleans and Biloxi were going to happen.  It was the right thing to do," she said. "Not only is leadership figuring out the means to do something, it is also having the passion collectively to make it happen. I want to stress how proud I am of all of you." Dean Rothenberg then informed the students that the law school would match the money they had raised with donations from fellow students, faculty, family and friends.