Eviction Defense and Tenant Protection Clinic - The Legal Aid Society

Introduction

A significant challenge for low-income New Yorkers is to find and retain safe and decent housing, a challenge made worse by the pandemic, inflation, gentrification, and enduring patterns of racial residential segregation. New York City has an extreme income gap, a supremely powerful real estate industry, and an increasing shortage of affordable housing- all of which disproportionately burden marginalized communities, families with less income, and people of color. Fortunately, New York City also has many rules and regulations to protect tenants’ due process rights. This duality presents law students with a unique environment in which to develop their lawyering skills while having a real impact on the lives of disenfranchised New Yorkers.

Experiential Learning/Fieldwork

Students will serve as student lawyers advocating on behalf of low-income New Yorkers to stabilize their homes and their families and hold landlords accountable.

Students will participate in the intake process in the courthouses, gather evidence, prepare affidavits and write motions, prepare for and conduct oral arguments on motions, and join in trial preparation. Students will be the lead point of contact with the client and take ownership of the case and client relationship. Students will primarily work inside housing court. Students will be supervised by the professors of this course.

Seminar

The experiential learning will be supplemented by the Eviction Defense and Tenant Protection Clinic Seminar in which students will learn Housing Court procedure; the substantive laws pertaining to defending housing in New York City; ethical rules in working with low-income clients; the ways that historic patterns of inequality based on race, gender, and sexual orientation, among other factors, combine with economic inequality to compound the impact of impending eviction on our clients; and strategies to use a racial equity lens to defend our clients’ homes.

The seminar will also focus on cultivating lawyering skills through in-class exercises and developing strategies to tackle various types of client matters and cases. Guest speakers visit the seminar almost weekly who are experts in various aspects of housing law, trauma-informed lawyering, and housing policy. In so doing, the seminar will expose students to various careers paths in the affordable housing and tenant protection space.

The seminar will meet for two hours each week, in the late afternoon/early evening, and will be graded credit/no credit based on class participation, completion of in-class exercises, and submission of writing assignments and self-evaluation. Participation will be limited to 10 students to encourage active discussion and dialogue.

Learning Outcomes

Students will learn to:

• Understand eviction and the dearth of substandard housing as resulting from a system that prioritizes profit over human rights, and to think critically about the role of housing court and lawyers as participants in that system;
• Prepare effective motions that, where relevant, reflect broader structural trends that contribute to our clients’ housing insecurity;
• Interview and counsel clients through a culturally-relevant, client-centered lens;
• Identify defenses and claims in housing court cases;
• Identify resources and rent subsidies that can support our clients in resolving their housing court cases;
• Develop argument and negotiation strategies that accounts for the structural bias in housing court and encourages judges to take an interventionist approach in addressing that bias;
• Partner with clients to reach settlements that reflect the clients’ interests and strength of their bargaining position; and
• Work effectively on legal teams.

Application Procedure

Students who wish to apply to the Eviction Defense and Tenant Protection Clinic should submit via CAMS the standard application, resume and transcript, as well as a writing sample (preferably not more than five pages long) and three references (include these on your resume). These materials will be forwarded to The Legal Aid Society. Each applicant should explain why they are interested in this clinic in the application. Applicants will be interviewed on campus or at The Legal Aid Society’s Queens office.

Please note there is a separate application form for LL.M.s. The deadline is different than for JDs, and is posted on the Clinic Application Timelines page.

* Consult the Clinics Open to LL.M. Students page to see if the clinic is available to LL.M.s in the current year.

** 10 credits include 3 clinical credits and 2 academic seminar credits each semester.