Pro-Bono Purgatory

By: Anonymous Watcher

Tuesday, July 9th in courtroom 2 started as a typical morning for rent court, with tenants trickling into the courtroom to check in. While agents prepared to collect, a handful of tenants left the courtroom to seek advice or representation from pro bono attorneys in the hallway.

On most days, there are 2-4 attorneys and a paralegal in the hallway who offer legal assistance to tenants. For most tenants, this is the first and only chance they will have to receive legal assistance in their fight for better living conditions or to keep their home.  However, the process is fast; a tenant has only a few minutes to share their story with an attorney- an attorney they are meeting for the first time and on the same day and time as their court proceeding. The attorney has very limited time to conduct research and offer legal advice or offer to represent the tenant.

In Maryland, tenants do not have the right to counsel in civil cases. For residents of Maryland, and Baltimore City, residents do not have the legal right to counsel for matters as important as defending their right to safe and affordable housing. Unlike San Francisco and New York city, Baltimore has failed to recognize the “consensus among legal scholars and academics that access to an attorney reduce[s] evictions and increase[s] housing stability.” Because of this, the pro bono attorneys at rent court juggle 3-4 cases in one docket. Combined with the immediate and fast paced nature of the proceedings, attorneys often appear before the court for one case and immediately leave the courtroom to prepare for the following case that will be called in minutes.

As imperfect as this process is-without the right to counsel- tenants, counsel and the court usually work well to allow the tenant to receive this minimal service.

This was not the situation on Tuesday, July 9th in Judge Gordon’s rent proceeding.

When a pro bono attorney appeared for his first case, he was in the hallway – only a few feet from the door of the courtroom. When the agent involved in the case called the attorney back into the courtroom, Judge Gordon ordered the attorney not to leave the courtroom again.  The Judge explained that she did not want the court to wait for the attorney in order to proceed, although she held the case to the end of the docket. The attorney, following the system described above, began to exit the courtroom, presumably to prepare for another case on the same morning docket.

Judge Gordon immediately stopped him and sternly ordered the attorney to sit in the courtroom. Despite the system that the clerks, attorneys and judges have tried to give tenants a small chance of asserting their rights and conferring with counsel for their human right to housing, the Judge ordered that the attorney could not leave the court. It became clear to me that because a tenant has no right to counsel in these matters, whether they receive legal assistance may depend on what judge is presiding.

In addition to preventing the attorney from being able to speak with his client and the client’s landlord, Judge Gordon had the case moved further to the bottom of the docket, preventing him from being able to leave the courtroom for an even longer amount of time.

Then, when the case was finally called, Judge Gordon asked if the tenant and landlord have had a chance to talk (in an attempt to reach a deal before being called before the judge); the attorney responded that they had not. In response, Judge Gordon granted them a two-minute recess – after she lectured the pro-bono attorney for a second time, declaring that it isn’t fair that he goes into the hall and court employees have to get him for cases, so when a judge tells him to sit down, he doesn’t have a choice.

Not once did Gordon acknowledge that this attorney – and other volunteer attorneys – are tasked with collecting as much information as possible in an extremely short amount of time multiple times in the span of ninety minutes. The Judge also did not acknowledge that the clerks do not search for the attorneys or the tenants. Often, the paralegal observes the docket and informs the attorneys when their case is called.

To punish an attorney for representing multiple clients who would otherwise have no legal aid or representation is unnecessary and, considering the matter, quite cruel. But, without the right to counsel, Baltimore tenants are left vulnerable to such acts.