How Right to Counsel and the Presence of Tenant Lawyers Shapes Eviction Courts

• In Event: Assessing the Right to Counsel: Eviction Prevention and Broader Impacts

Abstract

To date, evaluations of the effects of RTC have focused primarily on individual tenants, the direct beneficiaries of these programs. Less is known, however, about how these programs affect the functioning of the eviction system, which, in turn, may shape tenants’ housing outcomes and overall well-being. This paper seeks to understand these broader systemic changes, with a particular focus on eviction courts. Specifically, we ask: What does the presence of RTC lawyers mean for eviction courts and eviction proceedings? How does the increased presence of lawyers shape knowledge and narratives around eviction, both within and beyond the courtroom? How does RTC affect adjudication of eviction cases and the eviction court process?

To answer these questions, we conducted interviews with individuals who are involved with the implementation of RTC, including tenant lawyers, legal aid directors, RTC program administrators, and community organizers funded by RTC programs. In order to capture variation in the ways that RTC design and implementation and the local eviction ecosystems likely shape its impacts on the courts, we conducted this work in six RTC jurisdictions (Cleveland, Detroit, Boulder, Denver, Washington State, and Connecticut) and in one city that was in the process of adopting RTC at the time of interviews (Columbus).

We find that RTC programs and the increased presence of tenant lawyers in eviction courts helps to illuminate a previously opaque process, revealing the complexity of many eviction cases, unequal power dynamics that had previously gone unchallenged, and issues with the law itself. This suggests that the benefits of RTC programs may extend significantly beyond the population of tenants who receive direct legal assistance. Documenting and evaluating these sorts of unanticipated, “spillover” impacts of RTC is critically important, but also challenging: these changes are often harder to immediately see and difficult to precisely quantify. This highlights a crucial limitation in prevailing econometric frameworks for cost-benefit analyses that are often applied to social policy evaluation.

Author

• Danya E Keene, Yale University
  Presenting Author