Chief Judge’s 2026 Hearing on Civil Legal Services in New York

September 24, 2026

Adriene Holder, Chief Attorney, Civil Practice

The Legal Aid Society

Remarks for the Chief Judge’s Civil Legal Services Hearing

September 24, 2026

 Good afternoon. I’m Adriene Holder, and I serve as Chief Attorney of the Civil Practice at The Legal Aid Society. I am also honored to serve as a member of the Permanent Commission on Access to Justice and as a board member of the New York Legal Services Coalition.

I want to extend my deep thanks to Chief Judge Rowan D. Wilson; Presiding Justices Dianne T. Renwick, Hector LaSalle, Elizabeth A. Garry, and Gerald J. Whalen; Chief Administrative Judge Joseph A. Zayas; and New York State Bar Association President Taa Grays for the opportunity to address you today, for your continued leadership and, most importantly, for your commitment to investing in civil legal services across New York State.

Throughout today’s hearing, you have heard about the extraordinary need for civil legal services and the people and communities who depend on this work. You have heard about the justice gap, the unique challenges facing rural communities, the increasing complexity of our clients’ legal problems, and the uncertainty created by changes in federal funding.

Rather than repeat what you have already heard, I want to focus on what that investment makes possible.

When we talk about funding civil legal services, we are really talking about building the capacity to be there when New Yorkers need us—and the capacity to do something about the systems that are failing them.

One example is The Legal Aid Society’s litigation challenging the City of New York’s failure to implement legislation expanding and improving CityFHEPS, the City’s rental assistance program.

In 2024, we filed a class action lawsuit against the City and then-Mayor Eric Adams on behalf of four New Yorkers and a class of housing-insecure New Yorkers who, under legislation enacted by the City Council, should have been eligible for rental assistance but were not.

These were not abstract legal claims. They were New Yorkers trying to keep their families housed. Our clients included a grandmother who was a cancer survivor and working nights in a hospital while raising her grandson in a City shelter; an 86-year-old widow facing eviction; a single mother losing his home.

They had something in common: if the laws enacted by the City Council had been implemented, they would have had a meaningful pathway to housing stability.

So we sued.

This past June, alongside the New York City Council, we secured a landmark settlement with the Mamdani Administration resolving that litigation. The settlement represents a historic $300 million investment over 15 months and creates a pathway to rental assistance for thousands more New Yorkers, including rent-regulated tenants at risk of eviction and New Yorkers living in shelters who had previously been excluded from CityFHEPS. It also strengthens transparency and accountability and creates a framework for continued expansion.

But what stays with me is not simply the size of that investment. It is what that investment made possible.

One of our named plaintiffs, Ms. Marie Vincent, you heard her story today, was a grandmother who needed a lawyer to help her and her grandson get out of shelter. Because she had a lawyer, she was able to challenge a system that was failing her – and help change that system for thousands of other New Yorkers.

That is civil legal services.

It is individual representation, law reform, community advocacy, and legislative and policy advocacy. It is the ability to make the rights that exist on paper real in people’s lives.

That work is happening every day through civil legal services programs across New York State.

As you have heard today, JCLS supports access to justice for vulnerable New Yorkers throughout the state, including people in rural communities where geographic barriers and limited resources can make access to counsel particularly difficult. It reaches people who cannot be served through federally restricted funding streams and allows providers to respond creatively to unmet needs through innovative service delivery, technology, legal advocacy, and expanded roles for legal advocates and other non-lawyer professionals.

All of this is part of the same effort: closing the justice gap.

Closing that gap requires more than responding to today’s needs. It requires building – and continually strengthening – a civil legal services infrastructure capable of meeting the needs of New Yorkers tomorrow.

That is what makes the Judiciary’s commitment to JCLS so important. JCLS is not simply another funding stream. It is infrastructure.

Its stable, multi-year funding allows providers to plan rather than simply react. It enables us to respond to regional needs, build capacity in rural communities, pivot when new crises emerge, and maintain uninterrupted services when other funding becomes uncertain, restricted, or unavailable.

That stability matters enormously right now.

We are facing significant uncertainty around federal funding and policies that may increase demand for legal assistance while limiting our ability to use certain federal resources. We need a civil legal services infrastructure that can withstand that disruption.

We should not retreat from the infrastructure we have built because the times are difficult. We should strengthen it because the times are difficult.

That is why the Chief Judge’s commitment to increasing JCLS funding each year is so important. Each additional investment gives providers greater capacity to reach more people, respond to emerging needs, and build organizations that can withstand the challenges ahead.

One of the most important features of that investment is flexibility.

Our clients do not come to us with problems that fit neatly into funding categories. A person facing eviction may also be struggling with consumer debt. A family in shelter may need help with public benefits, employment, or immigration. A rural community may have needs very different from those of a large urban center – and new crises can emerge that no funding program anticipated.

The legal services system has to be able to respond to the person – not simply to the funding stream.

That means JCLS funding must remain sufficiently unrestricted to allow providers to follow the needs of their clients and communities. If a new crisis emerges, we need to be able to respond. If federal funding cannot be used to address a particular need, we need another resource that allows us to serve that client. And if an organization needs to invest in technology, training, supervision, infrastructure, or workforce development, it needs the ability to do so.

Organizational sustainability is not separate from client service. It is what makes client service possible.

That is particularly true when it comes to our workforce.

We cannot close the justice gap without lawyers, paralegals, social workers, legal advocates, and other professionals who have the experience and expertise to serve our clients, and we cannot retain those people without competitive compensation and the resources to support them.

At The Legal Aid Society, we have seen the difference that investment can make. Over the last three years, Civil Practice attrition across our entire staff has fallen from nearly 16 percent to 8.4 percent – almost half. Among attorneys, the change is even more striking: attrition has fallen from more than 18 percent to 7.6 percent.

Those are not simply HR statistics. They mean experienced lawyers stay. Institutional knowledge stays. Relationships with clients and communities stay. And more of our resources can go toward serving clients rather than continually recruiting and training replacements.

We should also continue finding ways to make our funding work more efficiently. Aligning administrative processes across funding streams, including JCLS and IOLA, can reduce duplicative burdens and allow providers to spend more time doing what matters most: serving clients.

When I look at JCLS, therefore, I do not see simply a line in a budget. I see an investment in the infrastructure of justice – one that reaches across geography and practice areas, strengthens the workforce, allows providers to respond to changing needs, and gives New York the capacity to confront the justice gap even in difficult times.

That is why I believe New York State’s commitment to JCLS is historic and courageous.

It is historic because New York has recognized that civil legal services are an essential part of a functioning justice system.

It is courageous because New York is continuing to build that investment at a time of tremendous economic and federal uncertainty.

But this is precisely when we need to be courageous.

We need to build a civil legal services system that is strong enough to withstand the storms ahead, flexible enough to meet people where they are, and ambitious enough to close the justice gap.

If New York continues to make this investment year after year, we can build something that the rest of the country will look to.

A blueprint for what it means to take the justice gap seriously. A blueprint for what it means to recognize that access to justice is not simply about having rights – it is about having the capacity to enforce them and a blueprint for what it means to invest in the people and institutions that make our justice system work.

Closing the justice gap is not simply an aspiration. It is a choice – and it is an investment.

For that reason, I urge the Judiciary to continue increasing JCLS funding, provide annual cost-of-living adjustments so that the value of that investment does not erode, and preserve the unrestricted flexibility that allows providers to respond to changing needs, sustain their organizations, support their workforce, and meet clients where they are.

Because the goal is not simply to keep the civil legal services community going. The goal is to make it stronger. To reach more people. To expand our capacity. To close more of the justice gap.

We must ensure that whether a New Yorker lives in Manhattan or in a rural community, whether they are facing eviction, consumer debt, loss of benefits, discrimination, family violence, or another life-changing legal problem, they have a meaningful opportunity to get help.

Ms. Vincent needed a lawyer to get her family home. Because she had a lawyer, she became part of a case that helped open the door to housing stability for thousands of other New Yorkers.

That is the return on this investment: not just cases won, but homes saved, families stabilized, programs strengthened, and systems changed.

That is why this work matters. Because when New Yorkers need the law to work, they need a lawyer who can make it work.

On behalf of The Legal Aid Society and the broader New York State civil legal services community, thank you for your leadership, your continued investment, and the opportunity to speak with you today.