The Overlooked Responders: Why Lawyers Are Essential After Disasters Strike
Legal professionals play a vital but invisible role in disaster recovery — and one expert says it’s time to better integrate them into emergency response teams.
In 2024, the United States faced more than 25 weather and climate disasters that each resulted in at least $1 billion in damages. Hurricanes Helene and Milton battered the Southeast, while tornadoes tore through the central and southeastern states. In New Mexico, wildfires consumed nearly 25,000 acres. These crises left behind more than just physical damage — they uprooted lives, triggered unemployment and heightened anxiety among survivors.
Disasters — both natural and manmade — occur across the globe. From hurricanes, floods and heat waves to wildfires, cyberattacks and civil disorder, it is critical that the right resources and personnel are in place to respond quickly. First responders like physicians and nurses, EMS, paramedics, firefighters and law enforcement rush in to contain threats and provide life-saving support. In other crises, such as cyberattacks and civil unrest, first responders may include cybersecurity analysts, incident responders and security engineers, working to mitigate damage.
But disaster recovery doesn’t end when the immediate crisis is contained. After first responders provide life-saving support and immediate relief, a second wave of responders, including attorneys and legal teams, must step in to help rebuild communities, secure resources and ensure long-term recovery. Yet, these “second responders” often go unnoticed, despite their crucial role in disaster relief.
Legal First Aid
Disasters of any scale can create legal challenges that upend lives. Attorneys and legal teams play a vital role in helping survivors navigate the aftermath.
At a minimum, legal services offered in disaster recovery typically include:
- Counseling on foreclosure and eviction, including homeowner and renter rights and landlord-tenant communication
- Appealing denied health insurance claims
- Making other insurance claims, including life, property and auto
- Resolving employment and labor issues
- Fighting scams and price gouging through consumer protection laws
- Assisting with the replacement of lost or damaged documents
- Navigating the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
- Addressing barratry (improper attorney solicitation)
These services, commonly offered by lawyers in the immediate aftermath, are rightfully considered secondary to life-saving critical care during disaster scenarios. Still, as an attorney specializing in the ways that law affects health and as a former vice president of the State Bar of Texas Committee on Legal Services to the Poor in Civil Matters, I want to emphasize the importance of legal awareness and expertise post-disaster.
That requires asking a key question: How can attorneys and legal teams be more visibly integrated into disaster recovery efforts? And perhaps even more importantly, why do so few health care professionals know these services exist when the people they serve need them most?
Consider two recent examples: In January, a rapidly growing wildfire engulfed the Los Angeles hillsides of the Pacific Palisades. Aggressive winds fanned the flames and spread destruction across more than 23,000 acres. Similarly, a few months earlier, Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, eventually impacting communities in Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The Category 4 storm swept through communities and caused severe damage and hundreds of fatalities.
In both cases, survivors experienced a range of legal challenges, including landlord/tenant disputes and mortgage and foreclosure issues for destroyed homes; property, medical and life insurance and FEMA assistance claims; and the loss of critical documents. While I cannot imagine the full personal impact of these specific examples, I recall well growing up in a small Midwestern town that experienced the so-called once-in-a-century flooding of the Mississippi River on multiple occasions. As the waters receded, members of my community faced urgent questions that were fundamentally legal in nature, as do, I’m sure, disaster survivors grappling with the aftermath of such tragedy.
But not all survivors realized their unmet needs constituted legal matters or knew legal assistance was available to them to aid in recovery. Survivors could have started restoring stability to their lives much sooner, knowing they had support in legal matters.
A Case For Unveiling The Legal Profession In Disaster Recovery
Best practice for lawyers — as shown, for example, by ABA Formal Opinion 482 — is to prepare for disasters and communicate promptly with clients after such an event. It is our ethical duty. Yet, outside of direct client relationships, the legal profession often remains hidden — largely invisible — until disaster survivors have nowhere else to turn and decide to seek legal help.
In fact, many individuals do not seek out legal help because they fail to recognize their situation as a legal matter — even when it is. This is potentially especially true in the aftermath of a disaster, when problems abound that may not feel “legal” because they don’t involve legal documents or court proceedings. Without those, knowledge, attitudinal, and both real and perceived cost barriers cause people to fail to identify when a lawyer can help.
In my view, increased awareness of legal needs by first responders — combined with reducing or eliminating known access barriers to justice, including distrust — is critical to improving the timeliness and health-affirming impact of legal interventions.
As part of preparedness for disaster, it should be standard practice that first responders have the basic skills and knowledge necessary to identify key health-harming legal needs. For example, property owners may use hurricane “damage” as an excuse to replace current tenants with higher-paying renters, issuing hasty and often unlawful notices to vacate within mere days. Legal assistance is critical to prevent homelessness and its collateral consequences for families often living paycheck-to-paycheck. Medical and health schools can strengthen this effort by educating students on spotting the legal needs that most commonly arise post-disaster. This work can be further amplified by licensing boards and professional associations through encouragement of interprofessional training that teaches clinicians how to collaborate with other professions, such as attorneys and paralegals, to provide comprehensive disaster relief. Such training is consistent with system-wide efforts to address non-medical drivers of health as part of the delivery of care.
Additionally, the integration of legal care within disaster preparedness is essential. Making post-disaster legal information accessible in health care clinics and hospitals, including the telephone number of each state’s Disaster Legal Services hotline, leveraging a standing network of pro bono attorneys, and partnering with rapid-response legal teams can encourage the profession to become even more involved in their communities, ready to respond when needed. Attorneys are vital members of disaster response efforts, helping to secure resources, protect rights and ensure a more just, efficient and resilient recovery.
Ultimately, the role of attorneys in disaster recovery must evolve, such that the legal profession is recognized as a key collaborator in a healing community. In the wake of increased severity of natural and manmade disasters, we can no longer afford to overlook the critical legal support that communities need when tragedy strikes. It’s time to bring lawyers into the fold — not just as happenstance participants, but as dedicated partners of first responders who are empowered to rebuild, restore and offer hope.
