With the coronavirus scourge sweeping the state, lawyers from both sides of the civil arena have come together to help health care providers on the front line fight a common foe.

With the launch of the website The People vs. Covid19, plaintiffs and defense attorney have teamed up to gather donations from the legal community to purchase food from local restaurants and vendors, and have it delivered to hospitals to feed staffers hard-pressed for time to eat.

Stewart Trial Lawyers principal Chris Stewart, whose firm has already been active in procuring and distributing face masks to hospitals, said the effort sprang from his contact in the project sprang from those efforts.

"One of the issues the hospitals were having was feeding their staff," said Stewart. "Doctors and nurses are working shift to shift, and can't run out and grab something to eat."

Stewart enlisted a friend to set up the website and GoFundMe page supporting the effort, and contacted fellow plaintiffs attorney Jeb Butler of the Butler Law Firm and Drew Eckl & Farnham defense lawyer Barbara Marschalk, and the trio began contacting other lawyers for donations.

"The response has been phenomenal," said Stewart, pointing to nearly $12,000 in donations coming in as of Wednesday evening.

Visitors to the site are encouraged to click through to a GoFundMe page, make their donation and have their name added to the list of donors scrolling at the bottom of the webpage and use the hashtag #thePeoplevsCOVID19 to help spread the word.

Butler said he's been in contact with Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Augusta and Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta and is fielding requests from other hospitals.

"A lot of these hospitals have local vendors they've already been working with, so we'd like to work with those vendors and local restaurants to have food delivered," said Butler. "We also want to support local businesses as much as possible."

They said having Marschalk aboard has broadened the scope of their outreach.

"Chris and I tend to know a lot of plaintiffs lawyers and personal injury lawyers, and of course we have some connections with the other side," said Butler. "Once we got in touch with Barbara, we immediately started getting support from the defense side."

"With this project, we want to help the people who are helping our community, and show that lawyers can come together in times of need," Marschalk said in a statement.

Neither Stewart nor Butler have ever tried a case opposite the Drew Eckl partner, they said.

"I did have one case where she was on the other side that almost tried," said Butler. "But when it come to something like this, lawyers can be at each others' throats on one issue and still be able to work together."

The effort is one more example of lawyers and law firms stepping up to assist as communities deal with the pandemic.

Harris Lowry Manton, which has offices in Atlanta and Savannah, donated 100 lunches a day last week to hospitals, police precincts and Fire and Rescue stations in Atlanta.

The meals were prepared and delivered by Empire State South restaurant in Midtown.

"We want to give back to the people in Atlanta who are working hard to keep all of us safe during the coronavirus pandemic," said firm partner Jeff Harris. "We also think it's important to support workers in the service industry who have been hit hard by the economic effects of this public health crisis."