Our Community Development Unit is working with a kindergarten based in Long Island City that experienced a serious flood. The tenant wants to understand their rights under the lease, including the landlord’s obligation to repair and whether they can terminate the lease. Unfortunately, their landlord has been unresponsive, and the tenant would like to consult with an attorney about their options. 

Our Community Development Unit seeks pro bono help for a faith-based non-profit organization dedicated to serving underserved communities on Staten Island through health-focused initiatives. The organization’s mission focuses on improving health outcomes, education access, and overall community wellness. The non-profit is planning to start a health clinic that will also provide patients with access to transportation by ambulance to ensure the clinic is accessible and will be able to support all in need of these services. 

The health-focused non-profit seeks assistance from a pro bono team that ideally has experience supporting healthcare-related clients and could also offer formation support. More specifically, they seek assistance with:

• Applying for 501(c)(3) tax exemption status
• Determining the universe of federal, state, and local regulatory compliance for clinics that provide family medicine, minor urgent care, and chronic disease management such as blood glucose checks, blood pressure screenings, cholesterol, and weight management
• Identifying and applying for all requisite licenses, permits, and authorizations
• Drafting contracts, service agreements, volunteer waivers and necessary other legal templates

The Legal Aid Society’s Family Law/Domestic Violence Unit seeks representation for a survivor client on her husband’s Chapter 13 bankruptcy, which would impact her ability to maintain her marital assets.  

Our Family Law/Domestic Violence Unit represents survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking in Family Court and in divorce proceedings. After suffering horrific abuse at the hands of her husband, we began representing one of our clients in a divorce proceeding in 2023. During the course of the proceedings, the husband stopped participating and also ceased paying for child and spousal support. He owes more than $18,000 to date.  

The only quantifiable resource the parties have is a house, which our staff believe is worth approximately $700,000. The deed is solely in the husband’s name, but the Court has found that the house is marital property, not solely the property of the husband. Our client has a judgment lien on the property reflecting the unpaid child and spousal support totals. However, the husband has not been making the mortgage payments on the house, and the bank has initiated foreclosure proceedings.   

Recently, the husband has tried to sell the house without our client’s consent, contrary to well-established case law that any property must be preserved for the end of the case. This attempt failed, and the Court has now appointed a receiver to manage the sale of the property and divide the proceeds as the divorce court directed in its final order. The receiver was just notified that the husband has filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. Our client seeks representation in the bankruptcy matter to preserve her existing lien and marital interest in the house. 

The Legal Aid Society’s Foreclosure Unit represents a disabled elder with no income who is living in his deceased sister’s home where the mortgage is currently in default.  However, we are unable to advocate to preserve the family home until Letters of Administration are issued.  

Upon his sister’s death, our client’s residence passed intestate to his 48-year-old niece, who has a diagnosis of severe autism and needs life-long care. The maternal grandmother, herself in poor health, is the court-appointed guardian for the niece.  

The family needs advice and assistance on administering the estate and further protecting the 48-year-old niece’s ongoing Medicaid/means-tested benefits. 

Legal Aid’s client is an elderly, disabled single woman who lived in her apartment in Brooklyn since she was a child. This building was owned by her mother who passed away in 2015 and the last recorded deed is still in the mother’s name. After the mother’s death, a bank started foreclosure proceedings on the building. 

In 2023, Legal Aid staff found a court filing in the foreclosure case which appears to contain our client’s mother’s will. Most notably, the will leaves all property, including the building where our client still lives, to all of the mother’s children, including our client, in equal shares as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. Until our staff showed this to our client, she did not know it existed. 

The family member who is acting as executor to the mother’s estate has been harassing our client and other family members by illegally locking them out and refusing to ensure they have access to utilities. They may have also taken property from the building illegally and engaging in other behaviors to push the remaining family members out of their home. 

The case is currently in the midst of discovery, most recently responding to the Plaintiff lender’s discovery requests and interrogatories. The client is still trying to gather the relevant documents showing that her mother was not mentally sound when she signed the reverse mortgage. Plaintiff’s counsel proposed October 31 as a deadline to produce documents, and wants to depose the client in early November, but the client’s current counsel has not yet agreed to either. 

A law firm pro bono team has served as counsel of record for the past two years but recently learned of a conflict that did not exist when they took on the matter. The team now needs to withdraw but will assist in transitioning the matter to a new firm. 

A Section 8 tenant recently won a judgement in Bronx County small claims court against her former landlord. The landlord never returned the tenant’s security deposit when she moved out and the client needs this money to support her child who is about to begin college. This tenant seeks pro bono representation to help enforce the judgment and secure any interest that accrues. She also would like assistance in requesting an execution for the Sheriff to seize assets and navigate any potential future appeal. The landlord has filed a notice of appeal, but it is unclear if he will perfect as he is representing himself pro se.