State Bar Disaster Task Force on Duty for Airliner Crash

By Bob Van Voris
New York Law Journal
November 15, 2001

At a time when New York City has already dealt with more than its share of tragedy, lawyers are once again volunteering to help grieving families with the legal fallout from a disaster. This time it is Monday's crash of American Airlines Flight 587.

Just two days after the crash, representatives of the New York State Bar Association met with families of some of the 265 people killed when the Airbus A-300 crashed in Queens just minutes after take-off from the John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Arrayed at a long table at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Manhattan's West Side, a handful of lawyers fielded questions on immigration, child custody, death certificates and other topics, according one attorney, Joel Schwarz. Mr. Schwarz, who is counsel to The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company on e-commerce issues, is a member of the State Bar's Mass Disaster Response Committee. The committee, set up to work as a quick-response team for victims and their families, is also prepared for questions ranging from consumer credit to trusts and estates law.

The hangar-like Javits Center, normally home to trade shows and other special events - not to mention the State Bar exam - is serving as the site for family members to connect with disaster relief services of all types. The lawyers' table shares space in the convention center with representatives from American Airlines, the Red Cross, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), state and local emergency agencies and others.

"The families are very calm, very quiet and subdued, as you would expect," said State Bar President Steven C. Krane, a partner at Proskauer Rose.

Two bilingual staff members from the Association of the Bar of the City of New York helped translate for the many Spanish-speakers who lost family members on the flight, which had been bound for the Dominican Republic.

Family members had legal concerns that covered a broad range of practice areas, according to Mr. Schwarz. The lawyers fielded questions about death certificates and how to arrange for bodies to be sent out of the U.S. for burial. Relatives of children whose parents were killed had custody questions. And Mr. Schwarz said the lawyers answered a lot of immigration questions, including whether relatives with criminal convictions might be prevented from reentering the U.S. after flying out of the country for funerals.

The pro bono effort is part of a program set up after TWA Flight 800 crashed off the coast of Long Island in 1996. In the wake of that disaster, the State and City Bars were asked to send lawyers to the Ramada Plaza Hotel at JFK, where some of the families were gathered for weeks while authorities searched the ocean bottom for wreckage and bodies.

After TWA 800, the State Bar put together a Mass Disaster Response Committee, made up of lawyers from around the state and including prosecutors, ethics lawyers, two mental health professionals and a former official of the NTSB, which investigates airline crashes.

Committee members are prohibited from taking cases from the family members they advise.

"This is purely pro bono," said Mr. Schwarz. "There's no retainer involved and it's purely to help out the families in this time of crisis."

Protection for Families

In addition to providing legal information to families and survivors of mass disasters, the committee protects families from lawyers trolling grieving relatives for big-money lawsuits. State law prohibits in-person solicitation. And federal law prohibits direct solicitation of any kind - including mail - for 45 days after an air crash.

The volunteer lawyers posted signs warning about illegal solicitation at the Javits Center and at the Ramada Plaza Hotel at JFK, where some of the families are staying. The Ramada, used by families in two other airline disasters in addition to TWA 800 and Monday's crash, has earned the nickname "Heartbreak Hotel." So far, lawyers have not heard about any illegal solicitation.

No one reported solicitation by lawyers or runners - non-lawyers paid to drum up business for lawyers - in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. But other disasters have attracted unscrupulous lawyers, including an Amtrak crash near Syracuse in February, where a State Bar lawyer caught people handing out business cards.

Mr. Schwarz, who was also one of the many volunteer lawyers who turned out to help victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said the experience gained in the past weeks has allowed the mass disaster committee to hit the ground running.

Thousands of lawyers pro bono in the New York area have helped people affected by the attacks, coordinated by state and local bar associations.

"We've had more of a supply of volunteers than we had places to put them," said Mr. Krane.

The State Bar lawyers anticipate they may be needed at the Javits Center for a week or two, but say they will stay as long as they are needed.