Improving Access to Civil Justice: A Conversation with Jordan Dressler

Jordan Dressler, the director of the recently created New York City Office of Civil Justice, discusses Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambitious five-year plan to provide free or low-cost legal assistance to every low-income New Yorker facing eviction, deportation, or other potentially life-altering civil proceedings. The interview focuses in detail on the benefits this guarantee is expected to have on tenants confronting landlords in Housing Court (the latter almost always represented by lawyers). Hosting this episode of New Thinking are Ignacio Jaureguilorda, director of Poverty Justice Solutions, our program that seeks to close the justice gap in Housing Court, and Robert V. Wolf, the Center for Court Innovation’s director of communications.