"How many of you are familiar with Excel?" asked Richard Bourke, the attorney designing the database fifty of us will spend the week creating. I tried to catch Kesav's eye - he is the inventor of the "matrix," an alternative to "outlines" (which I will put in quotes for all you non-lawyer, non-lawstudents out there.. the rest of us know well you can't get through a day of finals period without saying "outline" like 40 hundred times), and I am the queen of micromanaging and spreadsheets. Yes, we are familiar with Excel. We love Excel, Kesav and I. (Sorry Kesav, I'm outing you.)

All fifty of us were packed into the huge courtroom of the Chief Judge Ginger Berrigan of the Eastern District of Louisiana, which will be our workspace this week, listening to a few practicing lawyers explain not only the situation of the 2,500 incarcerated persons, but also the practical matter of what needs to be done: how to read docket printouts, how to decide what is important information, what is unimportant information, what questions are worth asking, and how to better design the database fifty of us will spend five days creating. OH what a task.

But it's so very important. As it's been described to us, there are tons of people incarcerated who the state has agreed to let out once they are identified (e.g., people who are jailed for having committed misdemeanors, and whose maximum sentences are well under the six months they've already served). But identifying who is who and what is what is such an incredible task. Even in the few cases we looked at today, we students from New York and Chicago and California and Massachussetts are all looking at each other thinking, "Are you kidding? Is this guy really still in jail?" Literally, it's just a matter of identifying the people who should be released. There is no disagreement about their existence.

Six months, people. It has been six months. All that keeps running through my head is, Six months, And still there is no plan.