The City of Asheville, located in western North Carolina, was just one area hit hard by severe conditions from Hurricane Helene's landfall in late September.
Situated in a broad valley surrounded by mountains, the town and its neighboring communities were not prepared for the destruction Helene brought. Nearby rivers crested at 26 feet, topping a century-old record from 1916 when two hurricanes swept through western North Carolina.




Attorneys working in private and public practice spoke to Law.com about the devastation left by Helene, reflecting how their day-to-day legal operations were affected and how their professional community pulled together in the aftermath.

"No One Expected It To Be As Bad As It Was." 

Steve Cash a litigator and criminal defense attorney with Searson, Jones, Gottschalk & Cash in Asheville, told Law.com that his first priority after the storm hit was stepping away from work to ensure his family and close friends were safe.
"The law practice just went away and we didn't even think about it," Cash said. "My first focus was checking on my family and friends because I didn't have any communication with my mom or dad, friends on the other side of the county that we didn't know how the weather had treated them. I touched base with my law partners and everyone was okay and safe somewhere."
Cash and his family had to wait days before they could return to their home in Marshall, North Carolina, located about 40 minutes north of downtown Asheville where Searson, Jones, Gottschalk & Cash is based.
"No one expected it to be as bad as it was," Cash said. "It took a few days before we could get back across the French Broad River, and there was no cell service so my family was without power; our house was intact, but no cell service, no internet, nothing; we didn't know what was going on."
In the midst of the devastation, Cash said his law firm benefitted from the "hard pause" brought by the North Carolina Supreme Court's Sept. 30 amended order that tolled deadlines for case filing in 28 counties, giving attorneys temporarily relief to focus on their personal lives.





Others in the legal community jumped into action. Two Charlotte-based attorneys Aaron Benjamin and Joseph Polonsky of Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft transported supplies to disaster-striken areas. Benjamin, a licensed pilot, joined in Operation Airdrop's Operation Helene, while Polonsky drove an eight-hour round trip from Charlotte to Hendersonville, North Carolina to deliver supplies.








, property damage, and displacement of clients, having only a few inmates to track down in other county jails. Equipped with e-courts, now launched in about half the counties in the state, the firm was able to keep up with electronic filing in the North Carolina Business Court in Charlotte.

"It wasn't a huge logistical challenge," Cash said. "We're not a high-volume firm; we sort of pick and choose cases and we were able to talk to opposing counsel and everybody was understanding and great. Everybody sort of pulled together."

Although the firm regularly works out of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, the court's "run-of-the-mill" criminal cases like first appearances and supervisor-lease violations were moved to Charlotte upon Helene's impact. The Asheville courthouse is now back up and running under normal operations.



That court order included Madison and Yancey counties, which along with not having electronic filing until July 2025, suffered property damage at their local courthouses. The Madison courthouse, located in Marshall, was forced to reopen at a different site due to flooding.

"The public defender's office was remarkable, in checking with clients in the jail because the jail had no power and no water," Cash said. "I think as a whole, there was a lot of resiliency and we bounced back pretty well."

"Things Were Kind Of In Flux." 

"There's a lot of sadness and stress, and loss and grief in our community right now, and that certainly affects our work," Buncombe County public defender Susannah Knox told Law.com.

While some attorneys were able to shift their legal priorities to less-affected areas, the public defender's office in Asheville was forced to pick up the pieces in the epicenter of Helene's landfall.

"Attorneys, judges, clerks, court staff, bailiffs, the sheriff's department; everybody's dealing with a lack of child care, on top of everything else which is very stressful," she said. "Not having potable water in our homes, or any running water; we didn't have any running water at all; that's been an ongoing stressor. Most of Asheville still has no potable water and didn't have running water."

Buncombe County closed its courthouse on the afternoon of Thursday, Sep. 26, and remained closed through the following week to Oct. 4. The first day of a "modified" court setup, primarily hearing cases for those in custody, was on Oct. 8.

"That's the main difference between us and private attorneys is that we work in a public building," Knox said. "The only other thing that would be arguably more difficult is that we have more clients, and our clients are a more vulnerable population, in general, so advocating for them is always hard."

During the first week of the closure, there was no internet service and some attorneys were even left without cell service, making communication extremely difficult. Knox said that the public defender's office did its best to advocate for their clients remotely, while trying to spread the word about poor conditions at the county jail.

Upon returning to the Asheville area, Buncombe public defenders were not able to use their usual office due to the lack of a sprinkler system presenting a fire hazard, forcing Knox and her colleagues to operate out of "a small workspace" next to a courtroom.

"Most cases were being continued anyway and there were no officers coming to court to prosecute cases, so it was a little bit easier to cover for each other and focus on the in-custody cases at that time," Knox said.

The courthouse was not opened to the public until the week of Oct. 21, Knox said. Communication from the DA's office was "confusing," she added, leaving some attorneys to sneak around caution tape to use restrooms. Judges then issued an order stating that it would be contempt of court to use the courthouse restrooms.

"Things were kind of flux; we would show up and not really know what the protocol was going to be for that day," she said.

Water is now running in the courthouse but not potable, leaving those in the building only to wash their hands and use restrooms.

The one lingering issue, she said, is the county arresting those who can't make it into court. For awhile, there was a grace period extended towards those who couldn't make their court appearances, but arrests have been made again beginning around the end of October.

She added that a general extension of grace for those still struggling should replace the "blanket policy" of automatically pushing court dates down the road.

"We have to be in touch with [our clients] and we have to know why they can't come into court, as opposed to the first few weeks where it was just automatically setting another court date and giving people another chance."

"For many of us, obviously for people who didn't leave their homes and could still come to work everyday, it's important to remember that there are members of our community who are still really suffering," she continued. "Even for those who are physically safe, their lives have been destabilized and so I think grace should be extended more generally for a while, but I understand that can't last forever and at some point people need to start coming to court again."

"I just had a client who lives in a camper and he lost everything he owned, and somehow he made it to court to try to resolve his case," she said. "Being a public defender is always an interesting slice of life, and you encounter people who are going through a lot, and right now it's even more so."

"If People Are No Threat To Public Safety, Do We Need To Lock Them Up?" 

At the Buncombe County jail, sanitary conditions were even worse, which also affected the attorneys.

According to Knox, there was a period where inmates only got two bottles of water in four days, toilets were not working which led to feces and vomit being left uncleaned. She also noted reports of inmates jumping off the mezzanine to injure themselves so they could be transported to better care at a hospital.

"Helene led to terrible suffering among inmates - toilets overflowing with feces and vomit, deprivation of food and water, and the emotional agony of not knowing if loved ones were safe," private criminal defense attorney David Kahn, based in Asheville, told Law.com.

Portable toilets were reportedly brought in but inmates were supposedly only allowed to use them once per day, while the rest of the time they were handed biohazard bags. The smell present in the jailhouse was apparent to attorneys when meeting with their clients behind plexiglass.

"When we got word that conditions in the jail had gotten really bad, some of my colleagues and I who had internet connection had gotten together to make a list of folks in jail that we presented to the DA's office to ask for emergency dismissal, just to get people out of jail," Knox said. "When the court isn't open, that's the only way you can get people out of jail is if the DA dismisses cases."

According to Kahn, Helene's disruption also exposed an underlying flaw in the justice system, which is holding too many people in jail.

"One way to avoid similar incidents in the future would be to examine whether everyone in jail needs to be there," Kahn said. "If people are no threat to public safety, do we need to lock them up?"

Kahn said those facing minor charges, such as misdemeanors or non-violent crimes, do not necessarily need to be held for extended periods of time, which makes a catastrophic event like Helene harder to handle in the aftermath.

"People in jail are still members of our community," Kahn said.

Big law is also pitching in to aid in recovery efforts. International law firm Womble Bond Dickinson, founded in Winston-Salem in 2017, launched an initiative along with the North Carolina Bar Foundation and Honeywell to provide free legal services to first responders.

The group’s “Wills for Heroes” included more than 30 volunteers, who provided crucial legal services including “essential documents” for active firefighters, law enforcement, and EMS personnel at the Charlotte Police & Fire Training Academy in early October.

“In the wake of Hurricane Helene’s devastating impact on Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina, our communities were reminded of the invaluable service provided by first responders,” Womble Bond Dickinson said in a press release.

“The clinic served 30 families, providing crucial legal services that will have a lasting positive impact on these first responders and their loved ones,” it continued.

McGuireWoods & Bissette Law Firm in Asheville remained open after the storm landed, with their employees working remotely. Its office closed from Oct. 7 to Oct. 10, reopening for normal business hours on Oct. 14. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.