Alumnus/Alumna of the Month

Andrew Scherer '78

Read an Interview with Andrew Scherer.

Named executive director and president of Legal Services for New York City (LSNY) in 2001, Andrew Scherer leads the nation’s largest provider of free civil legal services for the poor. LSNY—which is celebrating its 40 th anniversary this year—was created as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” Today, with offices in neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs of New York City , LSNY assists more than 25,000 clients a year. LSNY’s 210 attorneys and paralegals work with scores of pro bono attorneys to provide free legal help that addresses the most fundamental of human needs: home, family, income, health, education, employment and community.

Under Scherer’s stewardship, LSNY is expanding into new areas of law that affect the poor, employing innovative approaches and cutting-edge technology, broadening its use of pro bono attorneys, and increasing government, foundation and private funding. LSNY has new projects to assist low wage workers, to improve access to legal and other services for people with limited proficiency in English, and to provide multidisciplinary help on-site at community organizations throughout NYC. LSNY is also now a leading advocate for expanding unfettered access to justice for all, and, represented by the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, is challenging congressional restrictions on federally funded legal services programs.

Scherer has worked for LSNY since graduating from the NYU School of Law in 1978. He first worked in the South Bronx , representing low-income tenants who faced eviction, arson and abandonment. From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, he was LSNY’s Housing Coordinator and brought major litigation to secure due process rights for tenants in tax-foreclosed city-owned housing, to prevent displacement of low-income tenants through escalating rents and gentrification and to expand the right to counsel. From 1996 to 2001, Mr. Scherer directed LSNY’s Legal Support Unit, which, under his leadership, became New York ’s premier continuing legal education program in poverty law.

Scherer is a national leader in the field of civil legal services to the poor and a renowned expert in landlord-tenant law. He is the author of the treatise, Residential Landlord-Tenant Law in New York, with views from the bench by the Honorable Fern Fisher (West Group, pub., 11 th edition, 2006). He has also authored numerous articles, reports and contributions for legal and other publications. From 1986 to 1990, he taught Housing Law and Policy in the Root-Tilden Program at the NYU School of Law. He has also taught at CUNY Law School and Bennington College and is currently teaching planning law at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

Active in housing and community groups, bar associations and other civic organizations, Scherer is currently the chair of the Executive Committee of the New York City Bar Association and the vice chair of the New York State Equal Justice Commission. He lectures regularly on housing law, legal services and other topics at academic, community and bar events, and is a frequent consultant on housing and legal services matters to the media.