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CHAPTER 6
The Great Depression and its Opportunities:
Reforming New Orleans 'Social Environment
 VER A REFORMER, FJD always integrated his
professional skills and training with his social consciousness. Keenly aware of the need for equitable legal representation,
he realized that it was very important that indigent people in the city receive legal services when necessary.
After World War I, he was instrumental in the development of the New Orleans Legal Aid Society. Still in operation
today, the Legal Aid Society provides people without financial means the opportunity to secure appropriate legal
representation.
FJD's career was truly remarkable in that, arguably, his two most active
decades--the I890s and the 1930s--occurred forty years apart! During the first decade of intense achievement, FJD
had been a young reformer, a recent husband and father; during the second period, he was in his seventieth decade--still
a devoted husband, father, and now, grandfather. The energy and commitment required, fortuitously, remained constant,
and, in the 1930s, FJD proved himself as equal to the task as an elder statesman as he had as a public figure half
a lifetime before. In the earlier period of reform, FJD had championed the rights of children through his service
on the board of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children while also being a "mover and shaker"
in launching the development of City Park. These areas of interest did not change, but now the Great Depression
and the New Deal presented new challenges and opportunities to strengthen his dedication and undergird his actions.
When he was elected President of the Legal Aid Society in 1936, FJD actively initiated the development of a small
claims court for New Orleans similar to those already functioning successfully in other cities around the country.
According to a contemporary newspaper account, claims under $25 could be "heard and adjusted by the judge
in private chambers." The New Orleans Bar Association endorsed the idea of establishing a small claims court,
and Dreyfous stated that a bill creating such an institution was to be introduced at the next legislative session.
Explaining the purpose of the new court, he stated that it would ensure justice for "the many small wage earners,
especially women" who were "afraid to testify in open court and therefore let their claims lapse rather
than go to the law." The previous year, of the 424 cases handled by the Legal Aid Society, 239 had represented
claims under $25.
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