The Effect of Access to Council on Evictions: Evidence from New York City’s Universal Access Law

Abstract: The vast majority of renters facing eviction do not have legal council. Would a lawyer make a difference? I use a natural experiment from New York City to answer this question. New York gradually expanded a program proving free representation to poor tenants in eviction court by zip code. I use this staggered rollout to estimate the effect of the program on evictions using a difference in difference design, comparing trends in evictions in newly covered zip codes to uncovered ones. I estimate the program caused a 23 percentage point decline in evictions, and did not cause a significant increase in maintenance violations, complaints, or rent prices.