YLD needs volunteers to assist hurricane victims: the division would like to have lawyers in place before a storm heads our way.

Mark Arnold has a pretty good idea of the ties that bind Sunshine State residents together.

"As Floridians, we all know what it's like to have a hurricane come ashore," said Arnold, Florida's district representative on the ABA's Young Lawyers Division. His job is to help mobilize lawyers to coordinate volunteer activities after a disaster, through an agreement with FEMA and in cooperation with The Florida Bar's Young Lawyers Division.

Arnold, who practices in Miami, received hands-on training for his job during the 2004 busy hurricane season. He had been in the position for only about five days when Hurricane Charley struck Southwest Florida on August 13, 2004, with a surprise sudden turn into Punta Gorda bringing 145-mph wind gusts, killing dozens and causing more than $7 billion in damage.

"We didn't know what we were going to do," Arnold said. "We weren't even sure, at that time, of the widespread damage to the state."

Hurricane forecasters predict the 2006 season also will be very active. For that reason, Florida's attorneys are strongly encouraged to design disaster plans for themselves and their clients--and to volunteer to provide legal assistance to low-income victims of hurricanes through the YLD's disaster preparedness hotline.

"The hotline was created through a relationship with the ABA's Young Lawyers Division and FEMA," said Florida Bar's Young Lawyers Division President John Stewart. "The Bar's YLD agreed to share the responsibility of running the disaster preparedness hotline with the ABA's YLD."

Mustafa Mahdi, the program administrator for the YLD, leads the group of Bar employees who staff the disaster preparedness hotline. The staff takes incoming calls from economically disadvantaged Floridians who are seeking legal advice about issues caused by a hurricane and then farms those calls out to volunteer lawyers.

Mahdi said that the YLD's Board of Governors is taking a proactive approach this season by encouraging lawyers to volunteer now so lawyers are in place to provide legal assistance to low-income victims in the event any hurricanes strike Florida this season. Volunteer lawyers will be provided with a free Florida Bar Hurricane Disaster Legal Assistance Handbook and the volunteers' services will be limited to responding to discrete legal questions.

"Generally speaking, all the YLD Board of Governors members volunteer for the program," Stewart said.

Stewart understands the reluctance to be proactive, saying "the reality of the situation is that it's hard to get volunteers until a disaster strikes."

Mahdi explains the importance of having volunteer lawyers' information in the data base before a hurricane hits in order to spread the referrals more evenly.

"If the hotline gets 32 calls a day--or 160 in a five day week--and only 20 lawyers are in the volunteer database, those 20 lawyers could potentially get eight new cases a week," Mahdi said. "And that's in addition to the caseload they already have."

Stewart said they probably field "several thousand" calls through the hotline over the course of a hurricane season.

Arnold understands their concerns, saying he's wondered if they would be understaffed for each of the past three years. He isn't worried anymore, adding that "the lawyers in Florida have always responded."

"Two years ago when four hurricanes came ashore, we had more than 800 lawyers volunteer within three days," said Arnold. "That's an overwhelming response."

However, Arnold doesn't underestimate the value of planning ahead, admitting that he "didn't know what we would've done had those folks not responded so quickly."

He said people don't usually act until a hurricane hits land, but he would like it if they could get more lawyers on the roster before that happens.

"It would be really good if we could get lawyers to sign up on the prospect of a hurricane even though one hasn't come ashore," said Arnold. "It would save the Bar staff and the people who coordinate the program a lot of time if they already have some lined up."

Arnold stresses the importance of the hotline, as legal advice is offered free of charge. "It's all pro bono," he said.

Stewart said that the recruitment process goes on year-round, and both Arnold and Stewart have used ads to recruit volunteers in previous years. Stewart has used e-mail to contact Bar members around the state.

The Florida Bar Foundation recently held a disaster training workshop in Tampa and is working to come up with a method to field calls all over the state with attorneys standing by to take the calls directly.

"If Florida Bar attorneys could answer the phones, they could probably deal with a lot of the questions right there on the spot and eliminate that middle step where the Bar staff takes the call and forwards it to an attorney," Stewart said.

The challenges the Foundation faces concern logistics and technology, Stewart said, but he hopes that they will be able to "adopt a program that will test the way the system should work."

To register, e-mail your name and Bar number to Mustafa Mahdi, YLD program administrator, at [e-mail]. Even if you volunteered last year, the YLD would like you to register again to update its records.