Courts seek lawyers with disrupted cases

RICHARD BURGESS
2theadvocate.com

LAFAYETTE -- Court officials are putting out an urgent call for the thousands of displaced New Orleans attorneys who have federal cases pending across the state. Among the many lesser-known problems wrought by Hurricane Katrina is a major disruption to the legal system, as cases statewide for some 8,000 New Orleans-area attorneys are in limbo.

Federal court officials this week opened a "Communications Center" in Lafayette in an effort to track down those displaced attorneys and get cases moving again. "It's a center for vagabond lawyers," said Gary Zwain, who has appointed by the court to oversee operations at the center. Zwain, himself a displaced New Orleans attorney, said "thousands of cases" are unable to move forward because of difficulty in contacting attorneys.

Source: http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/092105/sub_disrupted001.shtml