Following the tragic devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, Yale students founded The Hurricane Initiative Law Clinic to help citizens of the Gulf Coast Region. The clinic both directly represents clients and provides support and human resources to already existing organizations in the affected areas. In the realm of criminal justice, students are working closely with lawyers in Louisiana to defend the rights of the incarcerated, repair the public defender system, and ensure that juries represent a fair and accurate cross-section of affected communities. Other clinic students have helped found an education organization that will support the newly created charter schools that are educating most of the children returning to New Orleans.

The clinic has paired with a legal aid organization to author pamphlets that explain housing rights to citizens, as well as to provide responses to proposed housing legislation. Clinic students worked with numerous local and national groups to help prepare for the first elections following the storms. The entire clinic traveled to New Orleans to train poll workers and help protect the rights of the disenfranchised. In Mississippi, students directly represented low-income clients on insurance issues.

This clinic hopes to expand and grow in the future so that it can continue to provide support for the Gulf Coast Region in the years to come, as well as other victims of natural disasters.