Facing eviction in Las Vegas? This firm can help

Some tenants fighting eviction in Las Vegas will have a new last line of defense before entering the courtroom.

In August, nonprofit law firm Nevada Legal Services began providing tenants with free consultations on the first floor of the Regional Justice Center. Seated behind a gray folding table a few steps from the eviction court’s doors, staff attorney Ron Sung has been dispensing advice to tenants from noon-2 p.m. every Monday.

“A lot of the tenants, this is their first time going through this,” Sung said. “They’re there to raise a legal defense to eviction, and that’s what I try to find in their case.”

While Nevada Legal Services’ pro bono practice in downtown Las Vegas already assists thousands of low-income tenants with housing-related legal issues every year, Sung said, the pilot program should help reach residents who are unaware of the resource.

He reviews tenants’ paperwork before their hearing and coaches them on what defenses they can raise. If evictions seems inevitable, he advises tenants to request extra time to move out before a court-ordered eviction stains their record.

Sung sometimes directly represents tenants in the courtroom. Last month he picked a case in which an elderly man risked losing his Las Vegas apartment because his landlord deemed him a nuisance due to a domestic disturbance issue.

Minutes before the tenant’s hearing began, Sung had the tenant retrieve court paperwork showing he was the victim of domestic abuse and that his abuser was ordered to stay away from him.

The two appeared in front of eviction court Judge David Brown together, armed with evidence that the nuisance had been resolved. Brown dismissed the case because the landlord didn’t appear in court, but Sung said he was confident the tenant and he would have prevailed anyway.

“I was really worried he wouldn’t be able to articulate the fact that he was a victim in all of this,” Sung said. “I feel about half the time I talk to a tenant they have an OK case. There’s certain things that can help them or win it for them.”

The overwhelming majority of tenants in eviction court do not have an attorney because they can’t afford one, Sung said. He was the only attorney representing tenants on a recent Monday, despite 27 cases being heard that afternoon.

Sung said he hopes the initiative will help persuade local lawmakers to adopt right-to-counsel programs, in which governments allocate funding to ensure every tenant facing eviction is guaranteed legal representation. New York City and San Francisco have adopted such programs in recent years, and other major cities are considering them.

National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel coordinator John Pollock said the programs are gaining popularity as more attention is being given by lawmakers and the media on how evictions harm families. Not only do they cause homelessness, but evictions have been linked to health problems, job loss and the disruption of children’s education, Pollock said.

“The consequences just go on and on and on, and to suggest that they are not serious enough to warrant (legal) counsel doesn’t make sense,” he said. “There are very robust pro bono programs in this country, but they don’t come close to meeting the need. They never will.”

Acquiring funding for a right-to-counsel program likely will be one major hurdle. Tens of thousands of renter households face eviction in the Las Vegas Valley every year.

But Pollock said those expenses would be far outweighed by governments needing to spend less on homeless shelters and welfare programs.

“If you’re the government, you’re going to spend the money,” he said. “The only question is whether you’re going to spend it trying to rescue people from disastrous consequences, or will you spend it on trying to keep them from happening in the first place.”

Contact Michael Scott Davidson at sdavidson@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Follow @davidsonlvrj on Twitter.