NYU School of Law

Community Development and Economic Justice Clinic

Course Description

The focus of this clinic is the provision of legal services to grassroots community groups that engage in a variety of community development, economic justice and social justice efforts. The clinic will primarily work with grassroots groups that are organizing low-income residents to assert their rights for housing conditions that comply with the housing code, and labor conditions that meet minimum standards under federal and state law.  Students perform fieldwork with attorneys from the Community Development Project (CDP) of the Urban Justice Center, and provide legal services to CDP’s clients throughout New York City. As part of the fieldwork, students will work on litigation cases as well as a research and policy project that helps grassroots organizations support and strengthen their organizing and advocacy work.

Grassroots community groups are abundant throughout New York City, and provide critical services in the communities they serve. They are often at the forefront of identifying and addressing local issues that later become issues of national importance. This course will provide exposure to grassroots community groups, and how attorneys can support their work. Like many other organizations, community groups have a variety of legal needs relating to their formation, growth, and service to members. The transactional needs of the group itself may include assistance with forming and governing a non-profit; applying for tax exempt status; complying with non-profit, employment and tax laws; and negotiating commercial leases. Litigation typically addresses the issues facing the groups' low-income constituents and members, and supports their organizing efforts around these issues. 

The Community Development Project (CDP) at the Urban Justice Center provides an array of legal services to community groups in New York City. CDP provides legal; technical and capacity building assistance; and research and policy assistance to grassroots community groups engaged in a wide range of community development efforts throughout New York City. The work of CDP is informed by the belief that real and lasting change in low-income, urban neighborhoods is often rooted in the empowerment of grassroots, community institutions. CDP’s transactional services include providing legal advice and assistance to grassroots organizations in a variety of legal areas. CDP’s litigation practice focuses on tenants’ rights, workers’ rights, consumers’ rights, and foreclosure prevention. CDP works with many neighborhood institutions throughout New York City, such as the Chinese Staff and Workers Association, the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops, the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, Domestic Workers United, and numerous tenants’ associations. More information about CDP’s work can be found on the Urban Justice Center website.

Fieldwork
The fieldwork for this clinic will be primarily or entirely conducted with CDP. Students in this clinic will have the opportunity to be involved in a litigation case as well as a legal research matter that supports CDP’s ongoing work by exploring an issue of importance to CDP and the organizations it supports. The majority of the fieldwork will be on the litigation cases.

In the litigation matters, CDP uses litigation as a way to support grassroots organizing efforts in New York City and works with their community partners to develop litigation that comes out of the issues facing their low-income constituents and members. Students will participate in a litigation matter, which will likely be in the area of workers’ rights, tenants’ rights and possibly foreclosure prevention. The workers’ rights cases typically involve minimum wage and overtime violations, workplace discrimination, and retaliatory discharge. Plaintiffs in these cases could be domestic workers, restaurant workers, spa workers and garment factory workers. The plaintiffs are members of such grassroots groups as Domestic Workers United and Chinese Staff and Workers Association. The tenants’ rights cases involve representing tenant associations organized by community-based organizations in litigation to combat landlord abandonment and to seek repairs to bring buildings into compliance with the housing code. The foreclosure prevention cases typically involve defending low-income residents facing foreclosure by answering the complaint, making a motion to dismiss the foreclosure action and negotiating with the lender to re-finance the underlying loan. Students’ litigation work would likely entail joining an existing team of lawyers working on an ongoing case, and provide an opportunity to meet with clients, strategize with co-counsel, draft documents, and prepare for and observe depositions and court proceedings.

Students will work out of the offices of CDP. Direct interaction with the grassroots organizations’ staff and members will be an integral component of the fieldwork. Students are expected to spend at least ten hours a week in the offices of CDP.

The Seminar
The seminar will meet weekly on Tuesday from 4:00 – 5:50 p.m. Classes will be participatory in nature, and students will be expected to give presentations, discuss their fieldwork and engage in simulations intended to sharpen practical lawyering skills.  

The seminar will probably cover the following topics: introduction to the work of grassroots organizations; employment and labor laws most often affecting low-wage workers, including wage-hour violations and rights to organize; housing code enforcement; foreclosure; fair debt collection; the non-profit incorporation process; corporate governance of non-profit organizations, such as by-laws and boards of directors; the tax-exempt recognition process (501(c)(3) status; organizing and the legal issues commonly implicated (e.g. SLAPP litigation); and ethical issues arising from representation of grassroots community groups and their members.

Application Procedure

Students interested in applying for the clinic should submit the standard application, resume, and transcript online through CAMS. Selection of students is not based on interviews. However, Professor Galowitz and an attorney with the Urban Justice Center will meet with applicants in groups in order to provide a more complete description of the clinic and to answer questions. These group sessions will be scheduled through CAMS. If you have any questions about the application process, please contact Michelle Williams at (212) 998-6439 or by email at Williams@exchange.law.nyu.edu.

Student Contacts

Students who wish to know more about the Community Development and Economic Justice Clinic may speak with the following students who were in the clinic in the Spring 2010 semester. (The Clinic was not offered during the 2010-2011 academic year since Professor Paula Galowitz was on sabbatical.)

C. Daniel Bowes        
Zoey Chenitz    
Wamiq Chowdhury 
Corinne Gentilesco        
Erica Iverson     
Megan Lew    
Julie Ota    
Rachel Stier

Students should also feel free to contact the professors about the clinic. Professor Paula Galowitz can be reached at (212) 998-6441 or  by email. David Colodny, a senior staff attorney with the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center, who had previously co-taught the clinic the past few years, can be reached at (646) 459-3006 or by email

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