Katina Werner plans to leave her Toledo home early Christmas morning, lugging a backpack with just a few necessities, and board a plane destined for New Orleans.

Once in the Crescent City, she'll share her legal knowledge with those who are desperate for it.

Ms. Werner, a part-time law student at the University of Toledo, will be joining a group of 230 other law students from more than 50 U.S. schools who in coming weeks will be arriving in hurricane-devastated areas to help people in need.

She is one of three students from Ohio who are making the trip, which is sponsored through the newly formed Student Hurricane Network.

The group is made up of law students from schools in Louisiana and Mississippi as well as universities from outside the region. "I figured surely they could use me somewhere," Ms. Werner said.

She will leave her home and her husband on Christmas, catching a flight on the holiday because the fare was cheaper.

"I think it's kind of putting your action where your mouth is. If you're sitting there watching TV and saying, 'I should do something,' well actually you can."

Like many, Ms. Werner wanted to reach out to those in the Gulf Coast when Hurricane Katrina struck in August, but she was immersed in fall semester by then. So she decided her holiday break from classes was her first, and best, chance to volunteer.

Ms. Werner, 33, will be living in a FEMA camp, most likely sleeping on an air mattress, and spending her time researching property titles for low-income land owners.

Other students will be assisting with housing and eviction cases or interviewing prison inmates through Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, which assists low-income people with legal problems.

The need for legal assistance is great, said Morgan Williams, a Tulane University law student who is one of the organizers of the Student Hurricane Network.

"It's dire, in a word," Mr. Williams said.

"It was a system that was severely strapped before the storm. Since the storm we have so many [Louisiana bar] members displaced at a time when there are so many legal questions and so many people having to deal with legal assistance who haven't ever before," she said.

Mr. Williams, 26, said the country stepped up after the storm to provide basic needs, such as food and shelter. Now, he said it's time that residents' legal needs are met.

He cited many families whose homes have been passed down over the generations but who don't have the titles to those properties.

"This is a long-term crisis. It's going to be years and years and years that the legal aid community will be trying to catch up with this problem," Mr. Williams said.

Ms. Werner, who works for the local public defender's office, received a few private donations and a church donation to help her with the travel expenses, and she's covering the other costs herself. Aside from law school, student law groups, and work, she also volunteers as a church youth group leader and as an on-call domestic violence responder.

Interim Law Dean Beth Eisler credited Ms. Werner for volunteering for the upcoming trip - especially during the holidays.

"She seems to be an incredible public-service person," Ms. Eisler said.

Contact Kim Bates at:

kimbates@theblade.com or

419-724-7074.

First Published December 24, 2005, 11:59 a.m.