Right to Counsel supporters call for OCA to slow cases

Right to Counsel advocates and lawmakers rallied to call on Judge Janet DiFiore to step in and slow Housing Court cases on Wednesday, April 13, 2022. Photo via RTC Coalition/Twitter

By Rachel Vick

Elected officials, tenants and advocates rallied in Manhattan Wednesday and made the call to court officials to ease Housing Court caseloads as legal service providers struggle to meet needs under the expanded Right to Counsel laws.

More than a dozen stakeholders and lawmakers gathered outside Manhattan Civil Court to call on Chief Judge Janet DiFiore to have the courts slow the number of cases being put on the calendar in order to ensure anyone in need can access a lawyer. A number of legal services providers say they are overwhelmed by the increased caseload and unable to represent everyone seeking an attorney.

Comptroller Brad Lander joined the rally to urge the courts to honor the hard-fought Right to counsel legislation, which ensures access to legal advice for New York City renters who earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line and are facing eviction.

“Long before the pandemic we knew that housing was a human right… but the pandemic reminded us of that in the most powerful of ways,” he said.

“The Office of Court Administration can't be allowing eviction proceedings to proceed until the Right to Counsel is guaranteed for every single tenant,” Lander added. “Sometimes we're asking for things that are big and complicated and cost a lot of money, and sometimes we're just asking for things that are common sense.”

The rally comes about a week after providers in Queens, including The Legal Aid Society, Legal Services NYC and New York Legal Assistance Group began turning away cases at the beginning of the month, citing a burden on staff that could lead to faltering client care.

“We pride ourselves on providing every person with advice they're entitled to in a challenging area of the law that is continuously changing, and holistic services,” Julia McNally, the housing director for The Legal Aid Society’s Queens Neighborhood Office, told the Eagle. “There's just no way to do that if we continue to have to assign cases.”

The expansion of RTC from several zip codes to citywide increased full legal representation by 70 percent and 84 percent of tenants were able to stay in their homes, according to the Right to Counsel Coalition.

OCA Spokesperson Lucian Chalfen said the representation issue at hand isn’t about the law itself.

“It is about legal services providers who are incapable of carrying out their contractual obligations regarding assigned counsel. They have refused every case assigned in the Bronx in March and now in Queens this month,” Chalfen told the Eagle Thursday. “That’s the problem.”

“Adjourning cases does nothing to resolve the issue, it only serves to slow down the process further delaying adjudications for both tenants and landlords,” he added.

He said conversations with New York City’s Office of Civil Justice, responsible for funding the Right to Counsel program, are ongoing and that “money is being left on the table by the providers.”