| President's Column
December 2005 / Volume 41, Issue 13
Reflections from the storm zone
October 3, Sandy Hook, Mississippi. A
mile and a half from the Louisiana state line. It’s about 93 degrees and
100 percent humidity. The water oak we’re working on, probably over 100
years old, was brought partly down by Katrina and finished off by Rita.
If it tips over just a little more, Miss Mae’s trailer will be gone.
In September, I debated a fellow from the Manhattan Institute about
volunteer immunity. He claimed there were “waves of frivolous lawsuits”
against volunteers, keeping help away from the needy people of the Gulf
Coast. (But when pressed, he couldn’t actually produce such a lawsuit.)
Being a curious person, I decided to see the relief effort firsthand, so
my wife, Dottie, and I contacted the Methodist Church about a mission
trip.
 We were soon dispatched to Sandy Hook, where we met the rest of our
team, volunteers from California. We arrived on a Sunday. On Wednesday,
some folks from Kentucky came in, and on Thursday, a crew from North
Carolina joined us. I asked around, and nobody was worried about
liability. I couldn’t find anybody from the Manhattan Institute to see
how they felt about it.
It’s hard to describe all the ways in which this trip touched and
changed me. Just the work itself is redemptive. We ran chain saws, we
dragged logs with my pickup truck, we cleared brush, and at the end of
the week, we rebuilt a house. There’s a unique satisfaction that comes
from physical labor, a different kind of fatigue than we’re used to as
attorneys, the pleasure of finishing a job, and the thrill of stretching
yourself beyond your usual boundaries.
Something unexpected occurs when hearts are open and people are
determined to help. We met a young couple; they had a six-month-old baby
and were expecting another child. They had evacuated to the north but
fled home after the relative’s house they were living in was destroyed
by the storm. Their Sandy Hook house had been rented but was abandoned
by the tenants, who had virtually destroyed it. It was wet throughout,
infested with bugs, and filthy.
Our team resolved to help, but we had no idea how. We were all amateurs
with no construction experience. The church had no funds to give to this
project.
Small miracles
And then things started to happen. Two men from Kentucky showed up. One
was a retired residential contractor. A phone call (to AAJ) raised
enough money to buy shingles, carpet, and building materials. Another
donation provided a new stove and refrigerator. Still, no one knew much
about repairing a roof. We weren’t sure how to handle that. We went back
to the church for lunch, and there sat a group of men from North
Carolina, looking for a way to help. Among them was the owner of a
roofing company.
As we left on Saturday, turning the job over to another crew (21 men and
women from Tennessee, again with no one concerned about being sued for
helping), the house had already been roofed and cleaned. The
exterminator had visited, and it needed only painting and the carpet and
appliances installed to be livable. The young mother called it her
“miracle.”
In a way, the reward of this work is the same as the reward we get in
our everyday practices—the joy of helping others. Miss Mae, for example,
is a widow, suffering from cancer. She had no one else to help her and
couldn’t afford a professional logger to remove the dangerous tree. The
young family had no help and little hope. If we didn’t help them, who
else would?
The comparison is easy to see in the intensity of a trip like this, and
I hope you’ll have a similar experience sometime. But I also hope you’ll
stop now to realize that we trial lawyers do this kind of thing every
single day. We take the needy, the hurt, the helpless, and we give them
a chance. We give them our strength when they have no strength, and our
hope when they have no hope. Take a minute when you read this to sit
quietly and remember what you do for people, and be proud of being a
trial lawyer.
—Kenneth M. Suggs
RELATED INFORMATION:
Ken Sugg's Bio
Announcement of AAJ Presidency
Articles: "New President Hopes to Boost Trial Lawyers' Image"
About Our Law Firm
Back To Top
|
