Our Community Development Project seeks co-counsel to help provide training on employer obligations for approximately 50 daycare providers working in northwest Bronx. Topics of interest include best practices for interviewing, hiring, and terminating staff, and other basic legal requirements of employers. This training would need to be in both English and Spanish. The group of providers has requested that the training occur as soon as possible in the Spring.  

The Legal Aid Society’s Community Development Project (CDP) seeks a consultation with an attorney experienced in nonprofit tax law regarding several legal and compliance questions arising from a client’s unique relationship with another organization. For the purposes of this referral, Legal Aid would be the client.  

CDP is working with a nonprofit that intends to develop affordable housing. Our nonprofit client works closely with another nonprofit organization that provides supportive services to residents. The two organizations have board members that sit on each board and may be considered related organizations for federal tax purposes under the Internal Revenue Code.  

CDP is seeking guidance on best practices for how to address this relationship through the client’s conflict of interest policy and governance procedures. Our team would also appreciate insight into any federal tax reporting implications, including disclosures that may be required on IRS Form 990, particularly Schedule R (Related Organizations and Unrelated Partnerships). 

During the course of a nonpayment representation, our Housing Justice client suffered a stroke and lost the capacity to act on his own behalf. Our client’s son is taking care of his father but does not currently have a properly executed Power of Attorney or other authority to address our client’s legal needs. Our client’s son seeks pro bono advice about possible next steps and/or representation on an Article 81 guardianship petition on behalf of his father.  

As Legal Aid does not have expertise with Article 81 guardianships, we will not be able to co-counsel or mentor this matter. We are able to assist with connecting volunteers with the client and his family. 

Pro bono representation is needed for The Legal Aid Society on an Article 78 alleging failure of the New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) to comply with a FOIL request originally sent on October 8, 2024.  

The FOIL request seeks consumer judgement data necessary for Legal Aid to determine whether there has been compliance with New York State’s Fair Consumer Judgment Interest Act (FCJIA). Passed in 2022, the FCJIA lowered pre-and post-judgment interest from 9% to 2% for all consumer debt actions, including rental/use and occupancy judgements in Housing Court. Despite an effective date of April 22, 2022, the NYS Office of Court Administration was unable to correct the form judgements utilized by the court until September 17, 2024. Therefore, judgements issued during that period incorrectly stated the interest rate which could be collected.  Since OCA was unable to provide data for the number of erroneous judgments issues, The Legal Aid Society filed this FOIL request with the DOI seeking information from the NYC Marshalls, the administrative agency responsible for enforcing the judgements. 

DOI acknowledged LAS’ FOIL and provided a response date of March 13, 2025. However, since March 13, 2025, DOI has been unilaterally extending its time to respond four different times (on March 13, 2025, March 17, 2025, November 20, 2025, and March 19, 2026) and recently denied part of the FOIL. The team is working on the appeal, but anticipates the Article 78 will be ready to move forward soon.  

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.

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.