> There is no lawyer who will defend tenants against landlords because there's no money in that.
> nonsense ... Every major city has some form of a tenant legal aid society.
As far as legal representation goes, it is dominated by landlords in NYC.
While you _can_ get a lawyer as a tenant, the housing court is set up to favor tenants not having counsel in the name of access and fairness, and they try to run things in a way that makes this tenable by quickly ruling to e.g. have the tenant pay back rent over time, or order the landlord to fix whatever etc.
If as a tenant, you do get counsel, everything changes and then the landlord holds all the cards through usual legal shenanigans like not showing up, dragging things out, having huge firms on retainer. Plus the judges decide you're not worth helping anymore since "you can afford a lawyer".
This also makes it that the vast majority of lawyers are on the landlord side as their really is "no money in it" to defend tenants and there's also no public-defender system. A legal-aid society is a band-aid at best. Even if you do pay you're getting the bottom of the barrel of lawyers who can't get any other work are the ones who represent tenants.
The barrel of lawyers who can't get any other work are the ones who represent tenants.
That's what the landlord-dominated system would have you believe.
Those who work on the tenant side (that I've known) are some of the most capable and principled professionals you'll ever meet. It's the ones who work the eviction machine who are the bottom feeders - and are viewed as such by other lawyers, accordingly.
I'm actually speaking from experience. I'm certainly glad to hear there are capable lawyers for tenants, but when I needed one, nobody would take my case until I found my own "bottom feeder".
Eventually I did retain a better lawyer (who usually represents landlords) and I can certainly agree that the firm representing the large landlord were hacks. However they had endless time to delay, not show up etc. For certain ends, "incompetent" lawyering works well as it racks up legal fees for the more competent party and can wear you down to a minimal settlement.
> nonsense ... Every major city has some form of a tenant legal aid society.
As far as legal representation goes, it is dominated by landlords in NYC.
While you _can_ get a lawyer as a tenant, the housing court is set up to favor tenants not having counsel in the name of access and fairness, and they try to run things in a way that makes this tenable by quickly ruling to e.g. have the tenant pay back rent over time, or order the landlord to fix whatever etc.
If as a tenant, you do get counsel, everything changes and then the landlord holds all the cards through usual legal shenanigans like not showing up, dragging things out, having huge firms on retainer. Plus the judges decide you're not worth helping anymore since "you can afford a lawyer".
This also makes it that the vast majority of lawyers are on the landlord side as their really is "no money in it" to defend tenants and there's also no public-defender system. A legal-aid society is a band-aid at best. Even if you do pay you're getting the bottom of the barrel of lawyers who can't get any other work are the ones who represent tenants.