The Impact of Legal Outcomes for Poor Tenants in New York City’s Housing Court: Results of a Randomized Experiment Carrol Seron Gregg Van Ryzin Martin Frankel 報告人：黃適文

The goal of this paper Does the provision of legal counsel affect outcomes Does the provision of legal counsel produce delays and other inefficiencies 2

Abandoned goal Post-trial survey Compare the outcomes of different legal support Three level: fully representation, assistance or advice 3

Background New York’s Housing Court Representation rate: Tenant 12% V.S Landlord 98% 500,000 renters have income below poverty line 4

The pro bono project IOLA fund the project against Homelessness (Interest of Lawyer Accounts Fund) CLO as project coordinator (Community Law Office) Focus on eviction case 5

Method Began on Sep 13, 1993 through Jun 27, 1994 Selection of participant: (1) didn’t have attorney (2) met the federal poverty guideline (3) faced eviction Decide the level of intervention 6

Method Numbered envelop with instruction 189 “proceed/treatment” 188 “control” Randomly select 268 of them,134 each The same three judges in all cases 7

Representation rate 8

Findings 9

10

Findings 11

Findings 12

Conclusion Represented tenants are less likely to have negative outcomes There is no negative influence on efficiency 13

Discussion Not general enough ( criteria & district ) Affected by judges and lawyers Remaining question: Follow-up survey & other form of legal aid 14