Hurricane Victims Find Place at UNM


Classes had barely begun when Hurricane Katrina quickly brought an end to the fall semester at universities along the Gulf Coast.


Among those students who weren’t quite sure how they would continue their legal education were Cassie Dugal, a 3L at Loyola University New Orleans School of Law; and Drew deGraauw and his girlfriend, Jennifer Mahoney, both students at Tulane University School of Law. All three had left New Orleans before the hurricane struck: Dugal


decided to head home to Sunset, La., a little town near Lafayette; deGraauw and Mahoney went to his aunt and uncle’s house in Ba- ton Rouge. They all spent the entire night watching the storm on TV and the subsequent failure of the levees, finding comfort in the company of family. Once it became clear New Orleans would not recover for a long


time, including the law schools, the students began looking for op- tions. DeGraauw made a phone call to the UNM School of Law. “I was planning on coming to New Mexico after graduation to


practice law anyway; my parents and brother live here and my grandparents moved here last year,” he says. Although he grew up in Louisiana, deGraauw spent summers with relatives in New Mexico. He was unprepared for the reception he received from Susan Mitchell, as-


sistant dean for admissions and financial aid. “I had started selling myself when she interrupted me to say UNM would take me and Jennifer and that we needed to get here right away, that we had already missed two weeks of classes,” he says. Once they arrived, they were enrolled in classes and provided free text-


books, since theirs were destroyed in the flooding aftermath of the hurricane. And they received externships with the state Court of Appeals. That was the first day. Before they had even met them, classmates emailed class notes. To help them catch up, professors stayed after class. DeGraauw plans to graduate this spring with a diploma from Tulane. Ma-


honey, a Kansas native, is in her second year and intends to stay at UNM, to be with her boyfriend, but also because she finds UNM a better fit. “The professors are more approachable, they even email us to see how we


Law School Contributes to Katrina Relief Effort


Professor Jenny Moore visits with a student in the Forum during her vol- unteer shift to raise money for the American Red Cross following Hurricane


Katrina. The Student Bar Association, Phi Alpha Delta and MALSA led a UNM School of Law relief effort that raised nearly $3,000, which was matched by Com- pass Bank. Members of the law school commu- nity also donated food, water and hygiene products to evacuees who relocated to Albu- querque after the dev- astating storm.


WINTER 2006


Drew deGraauw, Jennifer Mahoney and Cassie Dugal, right, enjoyed fall semester at UNM.


are doing, and everyone works as a team, which is a nice change from the competitive atmosphere at Tulane,” she says. After stay- ing with deGraauw’s parents in Placitas for the fall semester, she planned to get her own apartment for the spring term. Dugal had lost communication with Loyola and by the time she


heard that the law school was holding classes in Houston until the New Orleans campus could be reopened for the spring semester, she was at the airport on her way to Albuquerque. “The Loyola website was down for several weeks and I had found


out that UNM was accepting students,” she says. “I had always wanted to move out West and this seemed like a good opportunity.” She shared a house with Deana Bennett, a 2L, and Bennett’s boy- friend that was within walking distance to school. As much as she enjoyed and appreciated her time at the UNM law school, Dugal returned to Loyola for her final semester. Although they hadn’t met before arriving at UNM, Dugal, de-


Graauw and Mahoney have become close friends and it’s a good bet they will stay that way.


Women’s Bar Scholarship


Morgan Honeycutt, center, a 3L, was the recipient of the New Mexico Women’s Bar Association Scholarship for the academic year 2005-2006. She is flanked by Barbara Arbuckle (`90), president of the Women’s Bar Scholarship Foundation, right, and Dean Suellyn Scarnecchia. The scholarship was established to assist women law students at UNM.


UNMLAW 7


LAW SCHOOL NEWS


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