A nearly two-month strike at a nonprofit legal assistance group is taxing the city’s already strained right-to-counsel program for tenants facing eviction, fueling calls for higher pay and more public funding citywide.
Mobilization For Justice’s ongoing impasse has left fewer lawyers available to handle eviction cases throughout the housing court system, said Katy Lasell, the Right to Counsel Coalition’s campaign manager.
“We already don’t have enough attorneys to represent everybody at the pace at which landlords are suing people and the pace at which judges are moving cases forward,” Lasell said. “We need the conditions in place to make right to counsel sustainable. We need them to be paid well and have good benefits. We need their caseload to be manageable.”
Elise Brown, MFJ’s director of litigation for housing, said the organization has about 50 housing attorneys, including 18 supervisors who aren’t part of the union. Those supervisors are now picking up the cases from the striking lawyers, and MFJ stopped taking on new clients, even as eviction filings continue to rise.
Brown said MFJ has spoken with the city’s Office of Civil Justice about shifting cases to other nonprofit organizations.
“Even long before the strike, we were not able to take all cases for full representation,” Brown said. She also questioned whether everyone requesting legal representation was getting it.
Corinthia Carter, who is a housing attorney and the union’s president, said members want to return to work as soon as possible but need higher salaries given the workload and recent staff attrition. Under the most recent contract, attorneys’ salaries start at less than $74,000 a year. Lawyers with five years of experience earn around $90,000 a year and attorneys working for 10 years make about $102,000. Office assistants, paralegals and other support staff start around $51,000 and earn about $60,000 after five years.
“All folks at MFJ care about their clients deeply and they want to be present,” Carter said. “This is not work you do for the money, you do it because you care, but you do want to be able to do this work and be able to function and live in New York City.”
More than 100 attorneys, paralegals and other MFJ staff members began striking in late February after demanding pay increases, especially for non-lawyers, and more flexible hybrid work rules. MFJ management is rejecting their requests, arguing that the organization doesn’t have the cash for the double-digit percentage raises the union members are asking for.
“We want to try to make a responsible offer where we don’t go bankrupt,” said MFJ Executive Director Tiffany Liston.
Policymakers such as Comptroller Brad Lander, state Sen. Jessica Ramos and U.S. Rep. Jamal Bowman are siding with the union, appearing at their rallies and urging the legal assistance group to raise its salary offerings.
Lasell, from the Right to Counsel Coalition, said the salary dispute reflects a “systemic issue” of insufficient funding for the lawyers and staff tasked with intervening on behalf of tenants in housing court.
“Our city and our state need to step in and provide more funding so that legal organizations can support their workers more,” she said, adding that staff at MFJ and other nonprofit legal groups are “underpaid, burned-out and overworked.”
The Office of Civil Justice, part of the city’s Department of Social Services, did not respond to requests for comment. The state Office of Court Administration did not respond to questions about the strike’s effect so far.
The city provided some additional funding for the program last year, but came up short of the $461 million that legal assistance groups said they need to ensure every low-income tenant has an attorney in housing court as required by recent law.
Under New York City’s unique right-to-counsel rules, tenants qualify for full legal representation in eviction proceedings if they earn less than 200% of the federal poverty line — around $30,000 for an individual and less than $63,000 for a family of four. Eviction filings and removals have surged in the two years since a freeze on most lockouts ended in January 2022. Ongoing analysis by the Right to Counsel Coalition finds that nearly 60% of tenants are going unrepresented in court.
MFJ housing attorneys, social workers and organizers who are currently on strike say they want to be at work helping their clients remain in their homes.
“We’ve been on strike for seven weeks, and we need it to end now,” said MFJ tenant organizer Raquel Namuche. “Our clients need us. They depend on our services. And we want to go back to work, but unfortunately, we can’t because management is obstructing us going back to work because they don’t want to give us a fair contract.”
Both sides came to negotiations from wildly different starting points. The union first proposed 20% increases in the first contract, but the organization countered with 0.25%, said Carter, the union president.
“Ours was high, but theirs was just disrespect,” Carter said.
Earlier this month, MFJ outlined its latest offer on its website, stating that pay increases would total between 9.5% and 25% stretched over three years for front desk and support staff. Paralegals and attorneys would get increases between 6% and 22% over three years, depending on their experience. Front desk and support staff, the lowest-paid employees, would also receive bonuses for translation services and for working in the office.
Carter said those offers were “misrepresentations” and are just modest increases tacked on to existing steps included in their contracts. She said the increases will not keep up with inflation and will keep support staff making less than $60,000 a year.
Liston, the executive director, criticized the union for coming to negotiations with “pie in the sky” proposals.
She said the organization receives nearly all its funding from city and state sources and can’t afford the salaries the union wants.
“I do care very much about my staff and I’ve been disappointed by how negotiations have been,” Liston added. “I believe we’ve really been arguing in good faith.”
The union disagrees and is now calling for a boycott of MFJ’s June gala, where former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will be honored.
MFJ also provides legal assistance in guardianship, mental health and benefits access cases.
The ongoing stalemate is having a significant effect on New Yorkers who rely on attorneys and staff assistance, said Nya Nelson, an MFJ client who lives in Brooklyn.
Nelson said the organization is assisting her with an application for guardianship over her 11-year-old nephew, whom she raised and who calls her mommy. But that’s on hold.
Now, Nelson said she and her family are dealing with another issue. Their landlord is trying to evict them for nonpayment of rent. She said she’s disputing the amount and wants help from the attorneys at MFJ.
She and her sister responded to the landlord without legal representation, court records show.
“It’s frustrating to know that they’re fighting for basic things,” Nelson said of the striking workers. “They need things to function and I need them to function as well.”