Legal Aid Society appoints attorney-in-charge of Queens Neighborhood Office
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Julia McNally is the new attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society’s Queens Housing Office. Photo courtesy of Legal Aid
By Rachel Vick
Julia McNally has been appointed the attorney-in-charge of the Legal Aid Society’s Queens Neighborhood Office after more than a decade with the organization.
The new role and the impact it will have for the clients they serve is one McNally says she takes seriously as both a litigator and as a neighbor — particularly as many residents continue to struggle in the wake of the pandemic.
“I'm very excited about this position, I feel like it's a huge honor,” the Sunnyside resident told the Eagle. “This office is really close to my heart, this community is close to my heart.”
“Perseverance of the community during COVID has been striking… to embrace community and try to distribute resources and come together in face of it [is] at the same time heartbreaking to see,” she added. “It feels really special in this moment to look at how Legal Aid can have the most positive possible impact in the community.”
As attorney in charge, she will expand on her former role as director of housing where she oversaw all housing matters from problems involving eviction, foreclosure, NYCHA housing, rental assistance, and repairs. Now, her oversight touches different areas of civil practice including consumer justice, education law practice, public benefits and advocacy.
McNally emphasized the importance of taking the chance to look at the impact of housing cases on clients cohesively because “the experience with a tenant doesn't end when housing court ends.”
She explained that “collateral consequences of eviction” can include further legal action between the parties, personal and financial strain or just one of several points where they are involved with the legal system.
“I’m excited to pursue the idea of legal wellness, the holistic approach — where Legal Aid Society as a whole want to move — so to think about how we touch all different areas of a client's life and to collaborate with peers in juvenile and criminal [parts] to help families be stable not through this one problem but more broadly,” McNally said. “There's so much intersection between the different practice areas so I'm excited… to really dig in.”
Before joining Legal Aid, McNally was an Honors Associate/Agency Attorney for the New York City Housing Authority Law Department and volunteered with the Peace Corps.
She said she knew early in her legal education she wanted to pursue public interest law, but the work and the communities she has served since has been what keeps her going.
“These systems of oppression work to reinforce white supremacy and deprive people of the most basic fundamental things they have reason to value,” McNally said, “ so when we can work together and stand with residents to make their lives decent it's a privilege to do that work.”
At the core, she said, is doing her best to come to the table with empathy and remembering how complicated each individual’s life is.
“This is the impact we can have; do the best we can to help connect people with these resources to fight for them to be stable, consistent, and do so in a way that empowers clients and places them in the center,” she said. “Not robbing them of agency but doing the opposite.”
According to McNally, the challenges moving forward are reflective of those during the pandemic exacerbated by the court’s rush to return to normal. The expiration of eviction protections and cases with tenants who have applied to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program present unprecedented circumstances.
She said it is both troubling and disheartening to see some interpretations of the statute, and that residents she meets are not bouncing back as quickly from the financial hardship as reduced protections imply.
“This impatience with giving people time to get the money they need to stabilize themselves or make plans… it's very confusing for tenants who think they have a stay in place and all of a sudden they have a court date,” she said. “Why is there this need to move things really quickly — what are we gaining with this speed?”
