U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey, who launched the first Homeless Experience Legal Protection program in New Orleans, told a roomful of idealistic lawyers in Portland on Thursday that they cannot change the world.

But they can use their skills to change a homeless person’s world, and the satisfaction that comes from that is priceless. Legal help as simple as a phone call from a lawyer can start the process of getting someone off the street, he said.

"If we change a person’s world, I think we’ve all lived a very good life," he said, as he encouraged lawyers to join a new effort to provide legal services to the homeless in Portland [click here to read the full story on the Portland Press Herald website].