The Housing and Consumer Legal Clinic is ending a six-month hiatus that began when Prof. Edward Allen started a six-month sabbatical at the end of the Spring ’03 semester to sail the seas, study the sky for science quiz questions, and ponder joinder. Unfortunately, his six-month sabbatical was, as most everyone knows, nowhere near that long, but he did get a well-deserved break from clinic: Prof. Allen is UDC–DCSL’s longest-serving faculty member — counting his years with Antioch and D.C. School of Law — with over two decades supervising the Housing Clinic. The Clinic will be up and running in January, with several “old” cases that are in very active stages, including two negligence claims filed by tenants against their landlords for damages from criminal activity by outsiders, both of which are going to jury trials, a long-running landlord-tenant dispute over housing conditions and enormous rent increases, and some eviction cases. As usual, the incoming clinicians will have to hit the ground running, and keep running.

The 2003 spring semester ended with a cliff-hanger: Karen Walker, ’04, was scheduled to begin a jury trial on May 5 in one of the negligence cases but four days before trial, the judge postponed it until February 2004 because he had a conflict. Talk about a letdown! Karen was following the footsteps of several 2003 graduates who had full jury trials to add to their resumés, thanks to the Housing Clinic. For example, Nichole Blancato, ’03, won a jury trial in landlord-tenant court, and Shannon Ford, ’03, and Stanley Myers, ’03, each had a “warranty of habitability” case that was decided by a Superior Court jury — one up, one down.

A lot of the Clinic’s work involves achieving favorable settlements for low-income clients who face eviction, often because they withheld their rent to protest the unhealthy, inhabitable conditions that the landlord refuses to fix. Other landlords just want unconscionable rent increases for substandard housing, or to evict tenants so the building can be turned into upscale condominiums. Some clients have climbed into the driver’s seat and sued the landlords first. The different caseload gives students great opportunities to learn the D.C. housing laws (first) and go to court to practice what they’ve learned. The Clinic’s goal is to help clients and their families get and keep affordable housing that is also safe and decent; we do whatever we can to reach that goal. It’s a good feeling to help someone.

As the Spring ‘03 semester drew to a close, Hank Gassner, ’04, negotiated a settlement in a case that appeared to be headed for the Court of Appeals because the landlord was unwilling to pay. Hank was gratified to be able to present his client with a substantial check. Charlie Agwumezie, ’04, handled the first phases of a case already in the Court of Appeals — again, a disappointed landlord appealing the jury’s verdict. After back and forth procedural motions, Karen Walker recently asked the court to summarily affirm the trial court’s judgment in favor of our client. Hank also took a negligence suit all the way through the discovery process before the end of the semester, and that case will go to trial in the spring with an as-yet unknown student in the counsel’s seat. And in an unusual turn of events, Charlie was called on to write an opposition to a landlord’s motion to vacate a thirteen-year-old judgment obtained by one of Prof. Allen’s former clinic students.

Robyn Silverman, ’04, got very familiar with landlord-tenant court procedures — a very handy skill — by picking up the cases of some clients who had won judgments or favorably settled (thanks to the Clinic) but the landlord somehow hadn’t gotten the message to pay up. What good is a win if nothing changes? Robyn made it happen (ask her how she did it!) and the clients are forever grateful. Robyn also played private eye during the semester, as she tried (and tried) to serve papers on an elusive, rich landlord to force him to pay a judgment to a clinic client. She combed the city for him, only to discover that many (real) private eyes had done the same for their clients, all to no avail. She’s not deterred, however; at last report, she and her dark glasses were still in pursuit.

Karen and Robyn also briefed and argued an administrative appeal — still pending — before the D.C. Rental Housing Commission, the appellate component of the city’s rent control structure. Armed with facts, figures, and calculations, they made a persuasive argument that the clients should have won more than they did. For their efforts, they received Prof. Allen’s end-of-semester “In Your Face” award for essentially rendering the opposing counsel — a prominent, usually silver-tongued, attorney — speechless during oral argument. The appeal was the most recent development in two-plus years of litigation by Housing Clinic student attorneys seeking rent adjustments for a group of tenants forced to live in substandard housing (and the landlord had tried to raise their rents!). Among the many clinic students who worked on the case was Earline Rosenberg, ’03, who received Prof. Allen’s prestigious “Fire-in-the-Belly” award, for her especially stubborn pursuit of justice for the tenants. The award draws its inspiration from the late Jim Healy (ASL ’82), a Catholic priest and a dogged and effective advocate for Haitian refugees. According to Prof. Allen, Earline deserved the award for several reasons: she had “probably more evidentiary hearings than all of the other law students in the city combined” — two a week, for a period of time — and stuck with her clients through thick and thin, even after clinic ended. Earline also achieved something Prof. Allen said he had never witnessed in the “five bazillion other cases” he’s been involved with: she got a property manager to admit on cross examination that she wouldn’t live in the property “for all the tea in China.” This is “the moment trial lawyers dream about,” Prof. Allen said.

Prof. Allen also gave special awards and heartfelt thanks to several students who gladly volunteered their time to translate for the clinic’s many Spanish-speaking clients (and the many non-Spanish speaking student attorneys): Raul Villalobos, ’03, Toni Maschler, ’04, Luzelennia Ramos, ’04, Tony Fasullo, ’05, and Gena’ve Ramirez, ’05.