Five states, 17 cities and one county enacted laws between 2017 and 2024 guaranteeing tenants the right to legal counsel in eviction proceedings, but uneven implementation, chronic underfunding and persistent court barriers have sharply limited the programs' effectiveness, according to a new national study published Friday.

The report, titled "A Descriptive Analysis of Tenant Right to Counsel Law and Praxis 2017–2024" and co-authored by researchers including members of Eviction Lab at Princeton University, offers the first comprehensive study of laws creating a tenant right to counsel nationwide.

Led by researchers from George Washington University, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Rutgers-Newark and Wesleyan University, the study concluded that while right-to-counsel programs can dramatically shift eviction outcomes and court practices, widespread challenges have prevented the full realization of their goals​.

Drawing on legal analysis of 23 jurisdictions and interviews with 48 stakeholders involved in program implementation, the study found that although right-to-counsel laws frequently promise universal access to legal counsel, "the stated purposes of RTC — from protecting public health to addressing eviction to upholding fundamental principles of fairness and justice — can never be realized if programs are not fully supported or funded."

"RTC programs required a significant investment to function. Local actors in all jurisdictions described underfunded programs that struggled to meet needs," the report says.

Eviction remains a widespread and devastating problem in the United States, with an estimated 7.6 million renters — including 2.9 million children — at risk of losing their homes each year.

Landlords are represented by attorneys in 83% of eviction proceedings, while tenants have representation in only 4% of cases.

Peter Hepburn, an associate director of the Eviction Lab and one of the report's authors, told Law360 the study was aimed at providing a deeper understanding — and a comparison — of how right-to-counsel policies are implemented across the nation. He pointed out significant differences in how that's done.

"These programs can be extraordinarily successful in changing not only individuals' experience of having to go through landlord tenant court, but also just the ways that the courts work overall," said Hepburn, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University, Newark. "This can mean that tenants really have a chance to contest these cases, that they have a chance to tell their side of the story."

John Pollock, the coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel, a nationwide campaign advocating for legal representation, told Law360 the report, for which he was consulted as an expert adviser, was helpful in understanding the impact of right to counsel in jurisdictions that have endorsed it, and was a useful source of feedback.

"I think we've always known about the systemic benefits of right to counsel, but now we have it much more clearly documented and researched," Pollock said. "We're appreciative of the chances to learn about what the challenges are, so that we can react to them."

New York City became the first jurisdiction in the country to adopt a right to counsel in housing court in 2017. Four major cities — San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Newark, New Jersey — followed suit in the years immediately after.

But it was the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath that boosted the case for right to counsel in eviction proceedings nationwide. By late 2021, weeks after a federal moratorium on evictions had expired, eight cities and three states — Washington, Maryland and Connecticut — had enacted an eviction right to counsel for indigent tenants.

Since the end of the time frame the study looked at, more jurisdictions have adapted a right to counsel for tenants. Currently, a total of 19 cities, five states and two counties have some version of right to counsel for tenants.

In the study published Friday, researchers found significant differences in how right-to-counsel programs are designed and implemented.

One has to do with the timing in which counsel is provided: Only a minority of jurisdictions guarantee legal intervention before a court hearing, and few laws explicitly require courts to appoint counsel for tenants.

Another difference is the scope of who is protected by right to counsel. In San Francisco; Minneapolis; Baltimore; and Boulder, Colorado, there are no eligibility requirements, although the latter prioritizes low-income residents. In New York City, people earning 200% or less of the federal poverty level are eligible for full legal representation.

In Nebraska, meanwhile, right to counsel applies only to public housing tenants in a metropolitan area with a population of at least 400,000. In practice, that means only Omaha.

The way right to counsel programs have connected with tenants potentially at risk of evictions has also varied widely. Some have used aired TV ads, while others have focused more heavily on social media, such as videos on TikTok. Other programs have made outreach through community gatherings such as street fairs and back-to-school events. In most places, however, tenants must proactively seek out services themselves.

"Having a community presence really helps to get the word out," Hepburn said. "You don't want to be depending just on being there in the courtroom. You need to be out in the community and make sure that people are aware that these resources are available."

The report flagged successes brought by the implementation of right to counsel in housing court. First and foremost, people interviewed in the study said, access to legal representation increases tenants' awareness of their rights and their legal options when they feel they're being harassed by their landlords.

"It is about systems change, it's about balancing disparity in power," an attorney interviewed for the study said.

In addition, right-to-counsel program workers said the presence of a right to counsel has caused an increased enforcement of tenants' rights on issues related to housing conditions.

"Even where RTC legislation did not permit affirmative litigation to enforce building code or warranty of habitability violations, access to a lawyer allowed identification of legal violations and the information needed for non-RTC advocacy," the report says.

And with right to counsel coming to places that lacked it before, there appeared to be a shift in culture inside courthouses as well: Judges have been more inclined to give tenants more time to retain attorneys instead of issuing default decisions against them.

But the report spelled out significant challenges, in particular funding and hiring capacity.

"Local actors celebrated the role of RTC in addressing eviction, balancing power dynamics between parties, increasing enforcement of tenant rights, and facilitating coordination between service providers, among other benefits. However, they bemoaned limited program capacity, underfunded and partially allocated budgets, lack of infrastructure, and hiring and retention gaps," the report says.

Nine right-to-counsel programs relied heavily on temporary federal relief funds from the pandemic, such as the American Rescue Plan Act and the CARES Act. Others depended on unstable general fund appropriations that require annual budget reauthorization.

Four jurisdictions fund their right to counsel programs through specially created revenue streams. For instance, Boulder, Colorado, instituted a tax on landlords, while Jersey City, New Jersey, levies revenue from developers. Denver has a designated tax levy, and Maryland created a time-limited eviction prevention fund.

The study found that right-to-counsel programs in multiple jurisdictions "struggled to meet tenant needs" and struggled to hire enough attorneys to take their cases. One jurisdiction, for example, had enough funding only to hire two additional attorneys who found themselves handling 200 cases. Despite the heavy caseload, the attorneys' work was just a drop in the bucket: They operated in a system with about 6,000 eviction lawsuits filed annually, many of which involved tenants who were eligible to receive counsel.

"Even where funding was available, multiple large jurisdictions struggled to identify a pool of attorneys to staff the program," the report says, which also found local attorneys to be "underpaid and overburdened."

An RTC program worker interviewed for the study described a demoralizing and exhausting working environment, with attorneys experiencing burnout and extreme stress when dealing with people who risk ending up evicted.

"That's a real emotional burden on the attorney who then, even though they had no involvement in this process for years, they're the last line of defense before this person may or may not be homeless," the worker quoted in the study said. "That is a real grind."

--Editing by Jay Jackson Jr. and Lakshna Mehta.