Chief Judge’s 2024 Hearing on Civil Legal Services in New York September 16, 2024

Remarks of Sal F. Curran, Esq. Executive Director, Volunteer Lawyers Project of CNY, Inc.

Good afternoon, I am Sal Curran, Executive Director of the Volunteer Lawyers Project of CNY, Inc. (VLPCNY). I also serve as a member of the Permanent Commission on Access to Justice and as a board member for the New York Legal Services Coalition. I first want to thank Chief Judge Rowan D. Wilson; Presiding Justices Dianne T. Renwick, Hector D. LaSalle, Elizabeth A. Garry, and Gerald J. Whalen; Chief Administrative Judge Joseph A. Zayas; and New York State Bar Association President Domenick Napoletano for the opportunity to address you today.

Volunteer Lawyers Project of CNY, Inc. is a legal aid program whose mission is to provide access to justice by engaging the legal community in service to those in need. In the past year, our staff of attorneys, pro bono coordinators and legal assistants worked together with our panel of over 600 lawyers, law students and paralegals to serve over 4,000 clients in Central New York and throughout Upstate New York, benefiting over 10,000 community members.

I want to thank our client, Tracy, for her remarks about the challenges that she has faced when advocating for her right to safe housing. Tracy has demonstrated tremendous strength in fighting an unjust landlord action, even when doing so put her at risk of losing her housing. Sadly, Tracy’s experience with her housing is not unusual. Within weeks of winning Ms. Luter’s case on the basis that the eviction was retaliatory, another client won a case where a landlord tried to evict her for calling Codes when there was a cockroach infestation so severe that a bug crawled into a baby’s ear and had to be removed by a doctor, and another where the landlord illegally evicted the client after she complained about the sewage in her basement and a rat infestation that resulted in her baby’s clothes being eaten by rats.

Tenants have fought long and hard to get laws passed that protect them when they assert their right to safe housing, and that protect against retaliation and illegal lockouts. But, unless a tenant has an attorney, they have little to no ability to defend themselves against the eviction. Even with an experienced attorney representing the tenant, landlords lie to judges and Code Enforcement, and Judges sometimes pressure tenants to settle cases in ways that would result in an eviction even when the tenant has done nothing wrong. With an attorney by their sides, tenants know that they can fight for what is just. With new protections in place, such as Good Cause Eviction, it is more critical than ever that the New York courts support efforts to close the justice gap by ensuring that all tenants have access to legal representation in eviction proceedings, and that those who are entitled to legal representation are given time to obtain such counsel before the matter proceeds.

In some senses, Tracy was lucky, because she lives in the City of Syracuse where there are attorneys available to represent some of the tenants. Had Tracy lived in one of the 1,300 towns and villages in Upstate New York that have Justice Courts, she almost certainly would not have found an attorney to represent her. Just in Central New York there are over 300 Town and Village Courts that hear eviction matters, but less than two dozen legal aid attorneys to represent tenants. As a pro bono legal program, we have tried to set up pro bono programs to help tenants in the Justice Courts, but this is simply not a viable solution. Most rural counties do not have enough attorneys to do the necessary court-appointed work in criminal and family matters, let alone do pro bono work in eviction. As a result, the vast majority of tenants head to eviction court without ever having spoken with a lawyer and, more likely than not, without the knowledge of how to defend themselves.

Evictions have terrible consequences: they are tied to long-term housing instability, job loss, negative health consequences, education loss, and more. In Central New York, where rents have been increasing by 20% or more year after year for the past few years, tenants who are evicted are no longer able to find housing that they can afford, which has led to the highest rates of homelessness that have ever been recorded. The power imbalance in eviction proceedings is overwhelming – the vast majority of landlords are represented by counsel, and the vast majority of tenants do not have attorneys. In Upstate cities like Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, it is common for attorneys to have such overwhelming caseloads (with each attorney handling over 300 cases per year) that they cannot fully litigate matters, even when there are strong defenses. We know that having an attorney makes an incredible difference – when there is a right to counsel with reasonable caseloads, the majority of tenants who have a lawyer are able to stay in their homes and the number of eviction filings drops by as much as 30%.1

With the critical difference that attorneys make for tenants, it is imperative that all eviction cases where a tenant is eligible for universal access to representation, such as in New York City and Westchester, be stayed until the tenant has had an opportunity to obtain an attorney. Moreover, the courts are uniquely positioned to educate both the Legislative and Executive branches of New York government about the positive impact of legal representation in eviction proceedings.

Secondly, I wish to speak to the need to address the low wages paid to staff at legal aid organizations, which negatively affects recruitment and retention. My colleague Adriene Holder from The Legal Aid Society spoke about the findings of surveys by the New York Legal Services Coalition and the Permanent Commission on Access to Justice showing that civil legal services attorneys earn, on average, 18% less than their counterparts in government, with paralegals and administrative staff on average earning 15% less. When I completed these surveys, I was excited to see that my organization was only 8% behind its government counterparts for a starting wage, but was beyond dismayed when I realized that by 10 years into practicing, my attorneys are being paid 50% less than their government counterparts – I suspect that this may be the case for many other organizations.

These low wages make it extremely difficult to recruit experienced attorneys and have resulted in positions being open for 6 months or more. When positions are left open, the remaining staff stretch themselves to fill the gaps but ultimately fewer community members in need are helped and our staff suffers burnout. I speak from personal experience: for six months earlier this year, in addition to being the Executive Director, I had to fill in as Director of our Eviction Prevention Program. During this time, I personally represented over 30 clients, including Tracy Luter. By the time we finally were able to hire a Director of our Eviction Prevention Program, my personal and professional relationships were suffering, and I was experiencing burnout. Even with the new staff in place, it took a few more months to get the program fully back to speed.

The problem is that this wage disparity is built into our funding structure. For years, most sources of funding have not increased despite the real costs of living drastically increasing. When additional money is made available, we are expected to increase the number of clients we serve proportionately, leaving no room to increase salaries or reduce caseloads. To ensure consistent representation for those in need, we need for funding to increase to allow legal aid organizations to provide compensation that is competitive.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak on these important matters, for your past and future support for the work of the Volunteer Lawyers Project of CNY, Inc., and your support of our colleagues in the civil legal services community throughout the State.