As described throughout Section 1.1, there is a massive imbalance of power between landlords and tenants. One way this imbalance shows up is the representation disparity: only 4% of tenants nationally on average are represented in eviction cases, compared to 83% of landlords. There are many reasons why landlords have attorneys so much more often than tenants: 

• Landlords have greater financial resources and/or better access to counsel. As of 2025, landlords on average earn $35,000/year above the median income level, while tenants earn almost $21,000 below the median income level (when comparing renter income to the country’s median income).  Also, a landlord’s costs of having counsel are generally baked into their projected business expenses. Additionally, landlords can hire private counsel, and in many places, private attorneys represent landlords for a low flat fee.  In contrast, there are almost no attorneys other than legal aid that represent low-income or even moderate-income tenants.  Legal aid providers, however, generally receive far less funding than they need, which leads to a situation where “More than one-half (52%) of [cases] are turned away because they fall outside of the priority guidelines organizations develop to maximize use of limited resources. Another 18% fall within the priority guidelines but are turned away due to insufficient funds to provide service.”  Additionally, legal aid providers may not be taking new eviction cases at the moment or a tenant may not meet their income or other eligibility criteria.  Finally, LSC provides the bulk of civil legal services funding in the country, and LSC funds come with restrictions that legal services providers must follow, such as not representing undocumented tenants.

• Some jurisdictions permit non-attorney agents to represent the landlord. “Representation” generally means that someone has an attorney. However, some jurisdictions allow landlords to be represented by non-attorney “agents” such as property managers. Over time, agents develop familiarity with the procedural/substantive law, court practices and processes, and judges/court staff due to repeat appearances, making them almost like attorneys.  Most states do not allow tenants to be represented by nonlawyers. However, Delaware allows representation by Qualified Tenant Advocates who are not lawyers provided that those Advocates are supervised by a legal aid attorney, and some states (like Arizona and Utah) are experimenting with allowing nonlawyers to represent tenants.

• Some tenants don’t seek legal help because they don’t know they should.  When looking at civil legal aid problems more generally, the 2021 Legal Services Corporation (LSC) Justice Gap report found that “low-income Americans did not know if a lawyer could help resolve 74% of their problems.” 

• Landlords are sometimes legally required to have representation. Many landlords hold their rental property as a separate corporate entity (like an LLC) to protect themselves from personal liability if they’re sued. In many states, these entities must, by law, be represented in court by an attorney. Additionally, public housing authorities are generally arms of the government, and as is the case with state agencies and departments, they are represented by counsel when they go to court. 

Though a landlord-tenant power imbalance still exists even when tenants get counsel, having more tenant lawyers means there is a greater chance of spotting systemic problems (like gaps in the law or problems with specific courts/judges) that can get addressed, practices that have become status quo are challenged, and cases are appealed.  Also, tenants may feel safer about engaging in organizing or filing complaints if they know they’ll have a lawyer for any eviction the landlord files in response.

When tenants lead the organizing, visioning, advancing, and implementing of eviction RTC, it can help build solidarity among tenants, leading to stronger coalitions that can advance even greater renter reforms. Eviction RTC can also help empower tenants to act to use their existing rights (such as calling in a housing code violation) with less fear of landlord retaliation or harassment.

From the field: 

• An advocate in Boulder shared that the tenant organizing efforts that led to the enactment of  eviction RTC led to some revitalization of tenants’ unions. 

• In San Francisco, eviction RTC has helped tenants utilize their rights under a new ordinance establishing their right to organize. RTC organizing also helped support rent strikes in the area. 

• In Connecticut, tenants in one site were negotiating with a landlord who suddenly issued notices to quit to the tenant leaders. The Democratic Socialists of America and tenant unions held a rally where tenants organized members of the community, and successfully persuaded a Senator who attended. One of the primary reasons for the tenant union being so proactive was knowing the local legal aid office was there to defend them in any eviction actions due to the enacted eviction RTC. The notices were ultimately withdrawn.

New York City, where eviction RTC was first enacted, has been a particularly powerful example of how eviction RTC can build tenant power.  During the pandemic, NYC tenants organized the largest rent strike in 100 years across the city, where tenants in 57 buildings went on strike with the support of RTC attorneys. Additionally, a report from TakeRootJustice and the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition found that eviction RTC:

• (a) helps "[t]enants feel less stress and fear, and more confidence, knowing they have the Right to Counsel";

• (b) "bolsters organizing in a variety of ways," including as a "valuable know-your-rights tool and a way to teach about the history of the tenants' rights movement and the power of organizing."; 

• (c) "provides new opportunities for base building";

• (d) "enables tenants to put pressure on landlords," including enabling them to ask questions, ask for what they need, demand what they need, abate rent due to conditions issues;

• (e) enables or encourages organizing tactics such as rent strikes, Eviction Tribunals, Eviction Blockades, creating a Worst Evictors list; 

• (f) fosters feelings of empowerment, e.g., "a newfound confidence in facing the legal system"; 

• (g) "creates opportunities for tenants, organizers, and attorneys to build and navigate relationships, in the service of the tenants' rights movement"; and 

• (h) allows undocumented and marginalized people to "be engaged in the movement."

As one tenant noted in the report, “Right to Counsel has given us a sense of security so we’re not intimidated by asking questions, asking for what we need or even demanding what we need.” 

Another commented that: “Another example for me which was so amazing for me was how Right to Counsel and Housing Justice for All came together to fight to cancel rent. And one of the tactics we used was going on rent strike. And so that coordination...everything it took to bring that together was so helpful in terms of actually supporting all of the tenants, all of the buildings citywide that wanted to go on strike, they felt supported and said ‘I can do it’ because there are all these systems in place that are supporting us. [Another building] was being organized by one of my coworkers and the opportunity to come together because of the rent strikes happened, we actually brought the two buildings together, and started the rent strikes at different moments but they’ve been working together since last year on this rent strike, making demands, taking actions.”

An enacted and fully funded eviction RTC is one small, but necessary, step to help advance race equity in our housing system. 51.1% of Black families are currently affected by eviction filings, despite being only 18.6% of all renters, and so Black families feel more of the pain of the 4% tenant representation rate.  In fact, “roughly one in five Black Americans living in a renter household is threatened with eviction annually, while one in ten is evicted.” Eviction RTC is an investment in disrupting an eviction system that “perpetuates a race-based power imbalance and is structurally racist.”  So long as evictions exist, we have to ensure that tenants forced to engage with that system, particularly those who disproportionately face eviction, are guaranteed legal representation.  

And eviction RTC delivers: for instance, 2020 data from San Francisco’s RTC found that “four out of five African American tenants who receive an eviction notice and get help through this program end up staying in their homes, an 80% success rate."  A 2021 study of NYC’s eviction program (on file with the NCCRC) found that while the filing rate dropped by 26.8 cases per month in zip codes with the eviction RTC in place, the filing rate change was almost entirely in minority communities, suggesting that many of those filings were frivolous:

Meritless eviction cases are filed almost exclusively in communities of color.  [RTC] zip codes with a white population above the city median see no statistically distinguishable change in the number of eviction cases filed each month. Zip codes with a white population below the city median, on the other hand, see 42.1 fewer eviction cases filed per month. This difference in impact is statistically significant at the 1% level.  

And a 2025 study of Cleveland by the Urban Institute found that after TRTC was put into place, “tracts with higher representation increases corresponded to areas with a greater share of Black residents, lower median incomes, and a higher share of cost-burdened renter households. This suggests that the RTC-C legislation and outreach efforts effectively target residents and neighborhoods that have more structural barriers to accessing legal representation, such as Black residents and residents with lower incomes.”
We encourage you to review Building Support for a Civil Right to Counsel by Anchoring Your Case in Racial Justice: A Playbook for Justice Seekers Everywhere, and watch the webinar that explains the Playbook. The Playbook was developed by The Case Made, an organization with expertise on developing persuasive messaging.

“When people are in homes they can afford in the neighborhoods in which they desire to live, they are healthier…All people have a right to a safe, decent, affordable home, and when they have one, we all benefit from healthier, thriving communities.” (The Hidden Health Crisis of Eviction, 2018). 

Housing is deeply connected to health. Housing instability is a social determinant of health, meaning it plays a big role in tenant health. Housing instability and homelessness are incredibly stressful life events connected to a variety of physical and mental health issues. And when a person has to vacate a place quickly (such as when they are illegally evicted, or legally evicted before they’ve had sufficient time to find alternative housing), they may be “forced to rent substandard housing that exposes them to health and safety risks, such as vermin, mold, water leaks, and inadequate heating or cooling systems.” 

Eviction RTC doesn’t itself create health equity, but it’s a critical piece of how we must respond in order to create a healthy future for all members of our communities. Represented tenants in eviction RTC jurisdictions remain in their homes more often than unrepresented tenants, meaning they’re not forced to move to homes that are less desirable. In addition, where eviction RTC is in place, it can protect tenants who want to bring up unsafe housing conditions issues or enforce existing rights. Much like seeing a doctor earlier can prevent more serious medical conditions from developing, eviction RTC can be described as a type of preventative legal medicine because “[b]y intervening early and providing tenants facing eviction with a right to counsel, we can prevent evictions from exploding into a panoply of negative health outcomes and other consequences experienced not only by evicted families, but by society at large.”

Because of the connection between housing and health, Human Impact Partners has said that “presenting housing as a health issue is one of the most persuasive ways to promote housing justice policies.”  In 2024, Human Impact Partners, Results for America, the NCCRC, PolicyLink, and ChangeLab solutions developedAdvancing Racial and Health Justice Through a Right to Counsel for Tenants: A Primer for the Public Health Field, which can help advocates explain right to counsel to public health professionals and practitioners who can then join eviction RTC campaigns (also check out a webinar recording and slides related to this resource).

Note: CityHealth grades 75 cities on progress on specific policies. In collaboration with the NCCRC, CityHealth’s 2.0 Policy Package includes metrics for cities to earn medals on their tenant RTC policy (which they call Legal Support for Renters).

Evictions are routinely far more complex than is commonly understood. Most evictions are about non-payment of rent. These cases might appear simple, but they routinely involve issues that are legally or factually complex. such as 

• How much rent the tenant has paid or allegedly owes, which can be in dispute;  

• Whether the unpaid rent amount is due to fees or increased rent that violates federal, state, and/or local law; 

• Whether a tenant’s unpaid rent should be reduced or eliminated because of a failure by the landlord to make repairs to the unit. For example, one report out of Philadelphia found that "[t]enants chose not to pay rent because their landlord would not make repairs (19 percent) almost as often as they could not pay rent because of changes in their finances (20 percent).";

• Whether additional federal law and regulations apply due to a tenant having a housing subsidy, living in publicly subsidized housing, or alleging to have been charged more in rent due to their race, color, ethnicity, gender, familial status (i.e. whether they have children), religion, or disability status in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act; or 

• Whether there are any other applicable federal, state, and city laws that provide various kinds of protections for tenants facing eviction. 

Evictions that are not about the non-payment of rent can be even more complicated and can involve a number of issues, including:

• Whether the tenant has violated some portion of the lease; 

• Whether the lease provisions that are allegedly violated are legal; or 

• Whether a landlord’s decision not to renew a lease is illegal retaliation for a tenant having tried to enforce their rights.

Even in eviction cases where the tenant is agreeing to move out, or will have to move out, a court still may have to decide how long the tenant will get to vacate and how much the tenant has to pay, if anything. In addition, courts in jurisdictions with eviction record sealing laws may need to decide whether the eviction will remain on the tenant’s record. 

NOTE: A 2022 study of CT’s RTC found that “In all 439 (100%) closed CT-RTC cases where the client received extensive service, clients were experiencing at least 1 complex case criteria, and in 83% of closed CT-RTC cases, clients were experiencing multiple complex case criteria."]

Most unrepresented tenants do not even know when there are legal defenses available, let alone how to effectively raise them.  Depending on the state, tenants facing eviction may have a variety of legal protections or defenses available to them, such as situations where the landlord has:

• Engaged in an illegal self-help eviction such as locking out the tenant or shutting off utilities;

• Not followed state or local requirements to register the rental unit or obtain a certificate to rent the property, or ensure that the property is lead-free;

• Not properly served the tenant with the eviction papers, such as by not serving the papers at all, serving papers with defects (like naming the wrong tenant or the wrong reason for eviction), or improperly serving them (such as by handing them to the wrong person or by serving them in a way that does not ensure the tenant receives them);

• Used someone to file the eviction who does not have legal standing to file the eviction;

• Charged rent that is higher than that allowed by rent stabilization or rent control laws;

• Failed to maintain the property (which is a violation of the warranty of habitability);

• Given a reason for eviction that does not comply with a state or local “just cause” eviction law;

• Engaged in discrimination in violation of federal, state, and/or local law;

NOTE: A 2020 D.C. study found “600 cases in just two months where two process servers filed affidavits containing discrepancies that, if brought to a judge’s attention, would likely result in the eviction case being dismissed.”

The warranty of habitability is an especially important protection that often goes unenforced due to a lack of tenant legal knowledge.  A 2019 NYC study explains that “Courts, advocates, and legislators believed that by giving tenants the power to act as ‘private attorneys general’ to enforce habitability standards, the warranty would function as an important workaround to often inefficient and poorly resourced housing code enforcement systems.”  But this is not occurring:

• In New Jersey, 40,000 evictions were brought in Essex County in 2014, yet the implied warranty of habitability was raised as a defense for only 80 of those cases (.2%) despite the fact that there was a “statistical likelihood that significant housing code violations exist on leased premises in Essex County.”  But when raised, the defense was successful in curing housing code violations in more than half of those cases.  

• In Baltimore, a 2015 report found that of the 297 tenants surveyed (all of whom were unrepresented), 78% reported having at least one threat to health or safety existing in their home at the time they appeared at court, but there were only 62 who “disputed” their case before the judge. Of these 62 “disputants,” 85% said they had already “complained to their landlord about the threats to health and safety existing on the trial date”, yet 65% of them who had a serious defect didn't know it was a legal defense they could raise, half didn’t know they could ask to pay rent into escrow until repairs were made, and over 80% didn’t know the court could lower rent based on those conditions.

Where an unrepresented tenant does not know a defense exists, it is unlikely that the court will raise it. For example a 2003 Chicago study found that in 763 eviction cases observed, " . . While judges typically asked tenants whether they had paid the rent, judges only asked tenants if they had a defense in 27% of the cases. When the judge did ask for a defense, tenants presented a defense 55% of the time. If the judge didn't ask for a defense, tenants presented a defense only 9% of the time." 

Even if the tenant were to know of the defense, it is highly unlikely they would assert it successfully without a lawyer.  A New York City study found that “tenants with meritorious warranty of habitability claims had between a 0 and 3 percent chance of obtaining [a rent] abatement when they were unrepresented, compared with an approximately 27 percent chance when they had representation.”

Eviction RTC dramatically changes the outcomes for tenants in eviction proceedings in a number of ways.  Since eviction RTC programs have come into existence, the data from those programs has powerfully demonstrated how tenant representation dramatically changes the outcomes of evictions: 

• Staying in the unit: 

  • Maryland: Of the 87% of tenants who wanted to stay in their homes, 88% were able to do so (and notably, 36% of clients indicated they would be homeless if displaced). (2025 report)

  • Washington State: 56% of cases resulted in the tenants staying in their unit. (2024 report)

  • San Francisco: 63% of those receiving full representation were able to stay in their homes (2024 update). 

  • NYC: 84% of tenants were allowed to remain. (FY23 annual report.  NOTE: the Office of Civil Justice, which produced the report, defines “[h]ouseholds allowed to remain” as including those who “thwarted eviction and those given additional time to move out, based on reported outcomes.”) Prior evaluations are available on the OCJ website. 

  • Denver: For the cases where a result was known, 34% were able to remain in their home. (2023 report).

  • Toledo:  One year into Toledo’s eviction right to counsel, “Of the 139 cases closed so far, nearly 88 percent, or 122, of those cases were successful in avoiding eviction. As a result, 177 adults and 190 children were able to stay in their homes.” (2023 Toledo Blade story)

  • Detroit: 45.7% of represented tenants remained in their homes, while 100% of subsidized tenants who were represented retained their housing subsidy.

  • Philadelphia: Represented tenants were more likely to have a case withdrawn (26% compared to 18%) (2022 evaluation).

• Obtaining additional time to move:

  • Cleveland: 88% of those who sought 30 or more days to move were able to obtain that relief. (2024 evaluation).

  • Louisville: 2024 data from the program shows that 99% of the tenants who received extended representation either delayed or avoided an eviction in 2024 Q4, while 97% “either avoided or delayed their eviction with enough time to find alternative housing.”

  • New Orleans: Of 6,322 eviction cases observed, roughly 30% of those who had to move had at least 2 weeks to do so.  (2023 report)

  • Detroit:  For tenants who relocated, all were able to obtain more than the statutory minimum time to move.(2023 report)

• Avoiding an eviction on the record:

  • Denver: For the cases where a result was known, 97% avoided being formally evicted, while 8% left their home with no eviction record. (2023 report). 

  • Boulder: According to the City’s eviction dashboard as of Jan 2025, only 4% of represented tenants got an eviction on their record, compared to 42% of unrepresented tenants.

• Avoiding homelessness:

  • San Francisco: 92% of tenants assisted by the RTC avoided homelessness. (2024 update). 

  • Louisville: A RTC Homelessness Prevention Report from the Legal Aid Society found that 1,515 children were prevented from becoming homeless as a result of the tenant RTC program.

• Reducing or avoiding money judgments:

  • Baltimore: Tenants served “receive[d] more than $110,000 in housing judgments and avoid[ed] more than $745,000 in direct costs”. (2024 Maryland Legal Services Corporation report)

  • Maryland: Represented tenants “receive[d] more than $415,000 in housing judgments and avoided more than $4.5 million in direct costs."  (2025 report)

  • NYC: “T]enant representation via the UA program . . . reduced the award amount by 85 percent." [2022 report]  And “tenants with meritorious warranty of habitability claims had between a 0 and 3 percent chance of obtaining [a rent] abatement when they were unrepresented, compared with an approximately 27 percent chance when they had representation.”  [2019 study]

• Avoiding disruptive displacement: Ensuring tenants do not get displaced by a warrant of execution and forced displacement by the sheriff is an important metric of success, as this is the most disruptive and damaging outcome for a tenant and is far more likely to lead to homelessness and loss of belongings.  Stout, a financial analysis company, has produced many reports that consistently estimate a tenant RTC will lead to more than 90% of tenants avoiding this kind of disruptive displacement.  Additionally: 

  • Philadelphia: Represented tenants were about half as likely to be locked out (15% compared to 27%). (2022 evaluation)

  • Baltimore: 82% of the tenants who received full representation avoided disruptive displacement. (2024 Maryland Legal Services Corporation report)

  • Cleveland: Of the 89% of RTC clients who had the goal of preventing an eviction or involuntary move, that goal was met 81% of the time. (2024 evaluation).

  • Kansas City, MO:  86% of represented tenants avoided eviction. Avoiding eviction in this context included judgments in favor of tenants as well as voluntary / involuntary dismissals. (2023 report)

  • New Orleans: Of 6,322 eviction cases observed, the average number of represented cases with “positive outcomes” (either a dismissal or a consent judgment that avoided an eviction record) was 53.9%. (2023 evaluation report)

  • Connecticut: Of the 80% of RTC clients who sought to prevent an involuntary move, that goal was met 64% of the time.  Notably, 25% of clients indicated that if they had to move, they would have to live unsheltered or on the street, while another 46% said they did not know where they would go.  (2023 evaluation). 

  • Boulder: According to the City’s eviction dashboard as of Jan 2025, only 4% of represented tenants got an eviction on their record, compared to 42% of unrepresented tenants, while 59% of the cases ended with the tenant staying in their unit, the case being dismissed, or the tenant given a reasonable amount of time to relocate. Read the 2021 annual report for earlier data.

NOTE: A study looking at data from 2022-2024 in NYC found that the eviction RTC improved birth outcomes for tenant families.

Additionally, the impact of legal representation in evictions has been analyzed for decades, and studies of non-RTC representation programs consistently show that represented tenants receive much better and fairer outcomes than unrepresented tenants: 

• Staying in the home:

  • Hennepin County, MN (pre-Minneapolis’s RTC): A 2018 study found that represented tenants were twice as likely to stay in their homes.

  • Oklahoma: A research brief found tenant legal representation increased the odds of unit retention for tenants by 75%.

• Obtaining extra time to move:

  • Lancaster County, NE: A 2020 study found that “In cases where tenants had legal representation, only 2.3% were ordered to be evicted from their home the day of the hearing; by comparison, those who did not have legal representation were immediately evicted at a rate of 55.3%."

  • Hennepin County, MN (pre-Minneapolis’s RTC): A 2018 study found that represented tenants received twice as long to move if 
necessary.

  • New Orleans (pre-RTC): a 2019 study found that 14.6% of tenants with legal representation obtained a continuance, compared to just 1.7% of tenants without legal representation.  A continuance can give a tenant more time to figure out their options, prepare their case, and/or look for alternative places to live. 

• Avoiding an eviction record:

  • Hennepin County, MN (pre-Minneapolis’s RTC): A 2018 study found that 78% of represented tenants left with a clean eviction record, compared to 6% of unrepresented tenants.

  • Milwaukee County: a 2023 study of the Eviction Free MKE program found that 72% of the represented tenants clients achieved their goal of sealing their eviction record.

• Avoiding homelessness:

  • Hennepin County, MN (pre-Minneapolis’s RTC): A 2018 study found that represented tenants were four times less likely to use a homeless shelter than those without counsel.

• Reducing or avoiding money judgments:

  • Massachusetts: A 2013 study found that fully represented tenants saved an average of 9.4 months of rent and paid $0 on average to landlords.

  • Colorado: A 2022 study found that “In nearly all eviction cases resulting in a money judgment, the renter lacked legal representation, and the average total judgment in those cases was typically higher if the landlord had counsel.”

  • Tulsa: a 2020 study found that "[U]nrepresented tenants who appeared were more than twice as likely to have a money judgment against them (78%) than represented tenants who appeared (34%)." 

• Avoiding warrants of execution:  

  • Delaware: a 2020 study found that unrepresented tenants were 50% more likely to face a disruptive displacement than represented tenants.  Even a smaller decrease in these forced evictions is enormously important given the severity of this outcome:

  • Nebraska: a 2022 study in Lancaster found that represented tenants only faced this outcome 32.1% the time, compared to 41.9% for unrepresented tenants. 

  • California:  2020 study of the Shriver eviction RTC pilots found that tenants who did not move out as the result of a settlement agreement were likely locked out, and that “This situation occurred for twice as many [unrepresented] cases (n = 53) as full representation cases (n = 27)."

NOTE: While this Guide is focused on representation for eviction proceedings, tenant lawyers also can help stop evictions by providing critically important legal assistance before an eviction process even starts.  For instance, a tenant attorney can help a tenant ensure a landlord is making necessary repairs.  When landlords don’t make repairs, tenants sometimes withhold rent or use the rent money to make the repairs themselves, which may lead to an eviction proceeding.  They can help a tenant who is facing racial or sexual harassment, or who has faced discrimination.  And they can assist tenants in asserting other existing protections or rights such as lead removal laws or violations of rent control laws.

Putting aside the outcome of an eviction case, it is extremely important that tenants are given a genuine chance to participate in the process because it ensures that the public continues to have faith in the legal system.  This is known as “procedural justice”.  However, according to the 2021 LSC Justice Gap report: “[o]nly 28% of low-income Americans believe that people like them are treated fairly in the U.S. civil legal system.”  The Constitution requires eviction proceedings to give tenants a meaningful opportunity to be heard (otherwise known as “due process”), but the way evictions are designed to be fast and cheap interferes with that opportunity.

First, tenants frequently do not participate in the eviction process but rather default. Default rates are very high across the country.  Some examples include Philadelphia (58% as of 2018), Milwaukee County (between approximately 48% and 53% from 2016 through 2019), Columbus / Franklin County OH (approximately 66% as of 2024), and Hamilton County, TN (56% as of 2024).  What we have heard is that the default rate is between 40-80% in most places. 

A Delaware study laid out some of those reasons why tenants often do not participate: 

1. confusion and intimidation about the legal process;

2. the tenant has already vacated the apartment;

3. the tenant acknowledges that rent is owed and does not believe going to court will change the situation;

4. the tenant does not realize there may be valid defenses to raise; and

5. the tenant cannot miss work to attend court without jeopardizing employment.

Other reasons include: 

• A lack of childcare, especially if children are not allowed in the courtroom; 

• A lack of transportation or a significant distance to travel.  One study out of Philadelphia found that tenants with longer travel times to court were more likely to default;

• Disability or health conditions that make it impossible to travel to or enter the court; 

• Inability to understand the court papers due to English being a second language;

• Even where the court allows for virtual appearances, a lack of access to or understanding of the necessary technology.   According to the Federal Communications Commission, 17% of rural Americans lack access to broadband internet, while others lack the computer or phone they’d need to use virtual conferencing platforms (or the knowledge of how to use them).

• Failure to receive notice of the eviction due to service of process problems.

• The landlord and property-law friendly processes and practices of housing courts have generated long-standing, systemic disempowerment of tenants. When people experience these systems first hand, or watch family members, neighbors, or friends undergo eviction, it is not surprising that they see little point in participating.

In addition to these, there may be a misperception of why someone would need an attorney in an eviction. For instance, a NYC study noted that: 

“Some tenants have expressed the view that an attorney is only required when a person has done something “wrong,” and they do not believe that they have done so. Others have been in court before, know the landlord’s attorney, and believe they can handle the situation themselves. It is also possible that tenants have previously attempted to obtain a legal services attorney only to be told that the attorney cannot take their case (given the limited resources of legal services offices in the past), tenants may therefore think that the present offer of assistance will ultimately result in the same outcome … Some tenants are unfamiliar with legal service providers or skeptical about free lawyers, and decline counsel because they do not trust that they will be represented vigorously.   Some tenants are concerned about making their landlord angry and fear the possible consequences if they elect to be represented by counsel.”

Second, even if they participate, a tenant will not be able to meaningfully participate without an attorney. Eviction dockets are often packed, and as described earlier, the proceedings are often intentionally fast in a way that is difficult even for trained tenant attorneys, let alone tenants with no legal background. Tenants who have not been trained to identify and raise relevant facts and defenses will not know to do so, meaning the court will never get the information it needs to make an accurate ruling. Even if they know to raise a defense, they will have a short period of time to do so and will likely have to argue their points against a landlord’s attorney who may object to everything they say because the tenant is not following the right procedures or rules.  If the landlord or their attorney makes arguments that do not conform to the law, it is highly unlikely the tenant will know to object. 

In contrast, regardless of the outcome of a case, a tenant attorney will:

• Help the tenant understand the legal process;

• Fight to undo an eviction lost by default, such as by seeking a temporary restraining order or filing a motion to set aside the default and reopen the case;

• Make sure the landlord has followed all laws (local, state, and/or federal) with respect to filing the eviction;

• Identify potential legal defenses;

• Advocate throughout the process by challenging allegations made against the tenant, filing and responding to motions, presenting evidence and defenses, and seeking an appeal where necessary;

• Negotiate fair settlements;

• Seek to seal the eviction record where the law allows it;

• Seek court intervention where tenants have been illegally evicted;

• File a motion to reopen a case if a settlement agreement is not being followed; and/or

• Help ensure that agreements between the landlord and tenant are enforced.

While tenant attorneys ensure that tenants’ legal rights are enforced and help ensure procedural fairness, there are other ways in which they deliver extremely important benefits to tenants facing eviction.  This can be true especially where tenants facing eviction do not want to stay in their unit: in such situations a tenant attorney may negotiate a move-out agreement that makes it far more likely for a tenant to secure new housing, urge a judge to use their discretion to award more time, or secure rental assistance or other resources that assist with the housing transition.

Cleveland provides a clear example of this.  A 2022 study of the RTC program found that 43% of clients did not want to remain in their homes (perhaps because 82% of clients reported defects in their homes).  A 2023 report found that 88% of represented tenants who sought 30 or more days to move were able to obtain that relief.  And a 2021 report found that of the 21% of clients who were unaware of rental assistance at the time they contacted Legal Aid, approximately 98% wanted rental assistance and Legal Aid helped 81% of those clients obtain it.  In other words, Legal Aid played a key role in both awareness and securing of rental assistance.

NOTE: A 2023 study out of Tennessee found that 63% of tenants valued lawyers because they reduce stress.]

TIP: Check out the video, Beyond the Courtroom: Tenant Right to Counsel’s Broader Impacts, to get points for advocacy with legal aid. 

Eviction RTC can help governments avoid the negative effects of evictions that are very costly to government budgets.

While eviction RTC requires governments to invest funds, studies by Stout, an independent financial analysis company, have consistently estimated that eviction RTC saves money overall because a government will spend far less on an eviction RTC than they will on addressing the consequences of eviction, such as:

• homeless shelters;

• arrest and incarceration of unhoused individuals;

• foster care for children without a stable home;

• Unemployment benefits;

• child education disruptions;

• mental health treatment.

Other analysts have come to the same conclusion when looking at the cost savings for tenant representation in non-RTC contexts.  In Massachusetts, a 2020 report by the Analysis Group concluded that “full legal representation in eviction cases would cost the Commonwealth $26.29 million, while the cost savings associated with such representation are estimated to be $63.02 million”, while a 2020 study in Delaware by researcher James Teufel found that “[d]uring 2019, over $2.5 million in income, health, or housing benefits resulted from preventing evictions in Delaware.”  Finally, a 2023 report by the Los Angeles Housing Department found that “the societal gains of [the eviction defense program] over a one-year period range from $8,120,941 in short-term benefits (court fee waivers, waived back rent, and relocation assistance) to $4,614,565 in long-term economic benefits (the savings to the tenant over three years due to not moving, calculated as the difference between the tenant’s rent and the Fair Market Rent over 36 months, plus $2,000 in relocation expenses).”

Cost/savings data  often carries weight with policymakers on both sides of the political aisle.

Eviction RTC can help reduce eviction filings, which in turn can save money.

Fewer eviction filings means less pressure on and cost of eviction RTC programs, as well as use of fewer court resources.  In some of the early cities that enacted eviction RTC, early evaluations indicated that eviction filings decreased after implementation of the program.  For instance, in NYC, a 2019 report found that eviction filings had dropped by 20% drop that year, while a study of San Francisco’s eviction RTC identified a 10% drop in filings from 2018 (when the eviction RTC went into effect) to 2019.

During and since the COVID-19 pandemic, eviction filing rates have fluctuated dramatically due to eviction moratoria, rental assistance, and a variety of other factors, making it difficult to know the effect of new eviction RTC programs on the filing rate.  However, as the distance grows from the pandemic, it is becoming more possible to measure this effect.  For example, a 2024 report on Connecticut’s eviction RTC found that “Of clients receiving extensive services who had a goal of preventing an eviction filing, CT-RTC attorneys were able to prevent an eviction filing for approximately 47% of them.”

NOTE: The Real Estate Board of New York, which is the largest real estate trade association in the state, filed testimony in support of New York State’s proposed eviction RTC law.  So did two large property management companies in Massachusetts that manage a combined 27,000 units.  Other players in the real estate world have done so too.

Landlords may view eviction RTC as something that creates difficulty for them, but in fact there are many ways in which it can help them.

• First, a tenant attorney can help improve the relationship between a landlord and tenant.  When communication breaks down between landlords and tenants, or there is a strained relationship, eviction RTC means that the landlord can work with the tenant’s attorney and not have to work directly with the tenant.  This in turn can shift case discussion and negotiations to focus on relevant facts and the law, ultimately helping reach better results for both parties.  One property association commented they “prefer to be working with attorneys on the other side. It’s much harder for a landlord attorney to work with a tenant who does not have an attorney.”

• Second, for nonpayment cases, rental assistance is a benefit to both tenants and landlords. But some tenants have difficulty obtaining rental assistance without an attorney’s help.  As described earlier, a 2021 Cleveland report found that of the 21% of clients who were unaware of rental assistance at the time they contacted Legal Aid, approximately 98% wanted rental assistance and Legal Aid helped 81% of those clients obtain it.  And a 2022 study of Philadelphia’s RTC found that “Almost one-in-four represented tenants both received [rental assistance] and touched Diversion compared to approximately one-in-seven unrepresented tenants.”

• Third, in circumstances where a tenant is unwilling to move but unable financially to stay, and where there is no legal problem that would prevent an eviction, an attorney who builds a trusting relationship with the tenant can help the tenant fully understand the situation and evaluate alternatives to fighting to remain (such as obtaining more time or finding transition assistance), which can lead to a much more graceful exit.  

• Fourth, when tenants comply with the settlement agreement and make the required payments or move out on the correct dates, landlords can avoid the costs of additional eviction litigation, enforcement, and debt collection. An older (pre-eviction RTC) NYC study found that cases where tenants were represented were ”significantly less likely to have post-judgment motions filed (approximately 13%) than [unrepresented] cases (29%).” And tenants are more likely to follow through on a settlement agreement when they believe they entered into it fairly and had a real say in its terms.

• Fifth, some landlords may think their costs will go up if tenants have counsel, but this isn’t necessarily true. Many or most cases will still settle, not go to trial.  And while cases may take longer to resolve, vacancies and turnover can be expensive for landlords.  Eviction filing can be expensive too, and Stout has reported that “Stout has [] learned from landlords throughout the country that avoiding eviction filings is beneficial to them but can be challenging in the absence proactive communication and the ability to connect tenants to resources such as social workers, case managers, rent assistance, and legal representation

You may hear the question, “Why don’t small landlords get counsel?  They may be struggling too.”   Here are a few responses:

• Most TRTC programs are income limited. Numerous reports have shown that the vast majority of tenants in housing court are low income, but there is little available data about the income levels of landlords that would demonstrate a portion (even a small portion) would be classified as low income.   When Massachusetts ran representation pilots back in 2010-2012, they offered representation to landlords in owner-occupied evictions where the tenant had counsel, the landlord didn’t own other property,, and the landlord could demonstrate their shelter was at stake, but as their report notes, “The Task Force is not aware of a single case in which the landlord was eligible for representation. No requests for counsel were submitted to VLP.”

• The basis for a right to counsel at its core is the protection of basic human needs, and in eviction cases the primary need at stake is shelter (there are of course secondary needs that are impacted by being evicted, such as child custody, education, and health).  There are countless studies that show the link between eviction and the consequences, but we are not aware of studies showing these same shelter risks for landlords.

• Landlords and tenants don’t come to the eviction table equal.

NOTE: Eviction RTC can benefit small landlords in particular. Eviction RTC can connect tenants who are not able to remain in their units to resources that help them transition to a new unit, which can make the transition better for everyone. Small landlords often have a closer relationship with their tenants and it can feel very personal or painful to evict, plus it can be very emotionally charged. With counsel for the tenant, the landlord can just work with the attorney.  Also, small landlords are often swept up in an eviction crisis that is being driven by larger landlords: an Urban Institute study of Boston found that “Large landlords filed evictions 186 percent more often and medium landlords filed 55 percent more often than small landlords.”

What about harm to landlords? In their FAQs about the right to counsel, KC Tenants had the following response to the question “Will Tenants’ Right to Counsel harm landlords?”  

• Most property owners don’t want to evict their tenants, and they especially don’t want to do so in a way that is as inhumane as the current landlord-tenant court system. When a tenant has representation, the process becomes much more just for all parties involved.

• When tenants are represented by counsel, cases are resolved more frequently, and rent payments or payment plans are established. When a landlord wants the tenant to leave the home and the landlord has legal grounds to make it happen, the attorneys on both sides work toward a settlement that gives the tenant enough time to find new housing.”]

While there are many judges and court staff who support eviction RTC, some judges worry that if all tenants have counsel, their courts will grind to a halt, as right now some courts dispose of hundreds of evictions in a single morning due to a high number of defaults and the extremely short proceedings.  However, while tenant attorneys will file more motions than unrepresented tenants, a study in Massachusetts found that a judge’s time spent on the case actually went down when the tenant had representation, while a NYC study (on file with the NCCRC) found that the number of motions filed in eviction cases fell by 55 per month in zip codes where the eviction RTC was in effect.  In addition, settlement rates remain similar even when there is eviction RTC, but the settlement terms are more fair than when only the landlord has counsel.  In fact, an advocate in one jurisdiction commented, “when [legal aid] is on the docket, cases are much more likely to settle, and judges know that and see that as helpful to reduce their dockets.”  Finally, tenant attorneys reduce the load on court clerks, who are otherwise the front line for unrepresented tenants that have many questions. 

Tenant attorneys also help ensure procedural fairness, which is of great importance to judges.  The high default rates are contrary to procedural fairness because judges are evicting many tenants without ever hearing from or seeing them.  And when only one side has counsel, judges only really hear one side of the story. Plus for judges who feel it would violate the rules of ethics for them to ask questions of the tenant in order to get at the truth, tenant lawyers ensure that judges e can have all the evidence/law and can make an accurate ruling without having to worry about “taking a side.

NOTE: NYC Housing court judges have testified that eviction RTC was making their courts fairer and more efficient.  Also, a number of court entities and judges, both active and retired, have written in support of eviction RTC:

• CA Supreme Court Work Group on Homelessness’ report (2021). “Recommendation 1.1. Encourage and support legislative efforts to create and fund a statewide program that provides full-scope legal representation in residential unlawful detainer proceedings for all litigants who are unable to afford counsel.”

• NY Chief Judge’s Hearing on Civil Legal Services hearing transcript (2018). Judge Schneider, City-wide Supervising Judge, New York City Housing Court. “In every one of our courts, there are scores and scores of new lawyers representing tenants in every borough, and those lawyers are taking fairness into the hallways. They are in the hallways working on their own cases, but they pay attention to what’s going on around them and they have brought forcefully to the Court’s attention instance after instance of inappropriate behavior that they have witnessed or have been a part of inappropriate patterns of behavior in the hallway.” There is a Law.com article about the hearing (a subscription may be required).

• Judge Shera Grant, who was a State of Alabama District Court Judge for the Tenth Judicial Circuit who was hearing evictions at the time, penned Civil Gideon: A Judge’s Perspective on the Right to Counsel in Eviction Cases.

• Supreme Court of Texas Chief Justice Nathan Hecht and District of Columbia Court of Appeals Anna Blackburne-Rigsby co-authored an op-ed, It Should Take More Than 10 Minutes to Evict Someone, noting that “While not every eviction can or should be avoided, each eviction case must be given the attention it deserves.”