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By Sam Rabiyah

While thousands of tenants face eviction cases without a lawyer, the government office that administers New York City’s Right to Counsel law has scheduled its required annual public hearing from 6 to 9 p.m. this coming Friday — an unorthodox hour for public business. 

The meeting will be held online, reads the meeting notice, “Due to COVID-19.”

Tenant groups accuse the Office of Civil Justice of discouraging participation. They had hoped to use the hearing to protest plunging rates of legal representation in Housing Court.

Last fall, THE CITY reported that fewer than 10% of tenants in eviction cases were getting assigned a lawyer, despite the law guaranteeing one for all low-income people. 

Meanwhile, poor pay has depressed the number of participating attorneys. On Tuesday and Wednesday, more than 250 attorneys, paralegals and other staffers with the New York Legal Assistance Group plan to walk off the job, demanding pay raises and a better union contract. A large portion work on Right to Counsel cases, according to their union.

“The hearing is on a Friday night + virtual — it’s almost like they designed it for us not to come,” reads a notice from the Right to Counsel (RTC) Coalition, the advocacy group that prevailed on the City Council to get the law passed five years ago. 

Members of the coalition described the timing of the hearing as “insulting.”