Non-lawyers Prevailed In Housing Court

Trained professionals who helped pro se litigants in housing and civil courts in New York made a difference for their clients, according to an American Bar Foundation study. The non-lawyers, called Navigators were part of a program set up to help deal with issues in New York City Housing and Civil Courts. Almost 90 percent of litigants facing eviction go pro se while nearly the same percentage of landlords have attorneys. The ABF study found that when it came to eviction cases, lack of adequate legal help was a bigger factor than the actual merits of the case. None of the 150 program participants who were facing eviction were actually evicted from their homes.