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The Impact of Legal Counsel on Outcomes for Poor Tenants in New York City's Housing Court: Results of a Randomized Experiment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Carroll Seron ,
Gregg Van Ryzin  and
Martin Frankel
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Abstract

This article presents results of the first randomized experimental evaluation of a legal assistance program for low-income tenants in New York City's Housing Court. The results demonstrate that the provision of legal counsel produces large differences in outcomes for low-income tenants in housing court, independent of the merits of the case. For example, only 22% of represented tenants had final judgments against them, compared with 51% of tenants without legal representation. Similarly large advantages for tenants with an attorney also were found in eviction orders and stipulations requiring the landlord to provide rent abatements or repairs. In addition, the results suggest that a program of legal assistance for low-income tenants would not increase significantly the number of appearances in court, although it would increase the number of days to final judgment. The program may enhance the efficiency of adjudication by reducing the number of motions filed, particularly post-judgment motions. Limitations and policy implications of the study are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , 2001 , pp. 419 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

We particularly want to acknowledge the contributions of the Legal Aid Society's Community Law Office (CLO) and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, who jointly devised and implemented the Housing Court Litigation Project, including recruitment of the participating law firms. The project and the study also could not have been done without critically needed funding from the IOLA Fund of New York State and the wholehearted support of the then Administrative Judge of the Civil Court of the City of New York, the Hon. Jacqueline B. Silverman. Judge Silverman allocated very scarce space in the courthouse of the New York County Civil Court to house the project's staff, selected the judges who participated, and secured the cooperation of the clerks of the Housing Court to assign the treatment and control cases to the same judges. A very special thanks, as well, is due to the CLO staff who operated the courthouse office, worked with the evaluators to implement the study design, and mentored the volunteer counsel. The staff members were supervising attorney J. Lorch Brooks, staff lawyers Michael Bournes-Ney and Judith Whiting, and paralegals Aida Serrano and the late Cathey Goell. During a long project, Ms. Goell's commitment to clients, good humor and attentive administration of the case files proved critically important.

Also, the authors would like to thank Richard Lempert for his comments on the original design for this study and members of the Faculty Seminar in the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College, particularly Robert Kaestner, for comments on a preliminary draft of this article. We are grateful to Sheryl Karp, Edward Purcell, and David Weschler for the opportunity to conduct this research and for their comments on various drafts. We are especially grateful to Sheryl Karp for her diligence throughout this study. Also, we would like to thank Jennifer Lynch for research assistance in the initial coding and preparation of the data set. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments of three anonymous reviewers of Law & Society Review and the editor, Joe Sanders.

References

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Case Cited

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Statute Cited

1997 N.Y. Laws 116. The Rent Regulation Reform Act of 1997..Google Scholar