Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP
Ryan Papir
One of our MCJ clients was a hurricane survivor who filed an appeal to FEMA regarding both the very small amount of money she was initially awarded and FEMA's apparently arbitrary refusal to provide her with a mobile home (as opposed to a travel trailer), despite the fact that her own mobile home had been rendered totally uninhabitable by damage from the hurricane. Her path through the inner workings of FEMA was slow and tortuous, stretching over a year. Finally, thanks to her patience and persistence, and constant pressure on FEMA, our client received the mobile home that she had so desperately sought for herself and her family. She also received payments from FEMA totaling over $18,000.
Working on this matter was among the most rewarding experiences of my career. My client was a single mother who was supporting herself and her two children, one of whom is a veteran of the Iraq war. Her expressions of gratitude made me feel that my work had really made a difference to her and her children. She and her sons now live in a new mobile home, rather than a cramped travel trailer, and have additional funds to help them get their lives back in order.