Free Eric Dinnocenzo - The Tenant Lawyer by Eric Dinnocenzo Page A

appreciating it fully before.”
    Sara shook her head. “You’re ridiculous.”
    “I’m just kidding. You know that. Have some.” I gestured to the pizza box and Sara extracted a slice.
    “This is really an opportune moment for you to make a benevolent gesture,” I remarked, “by switching the channel.”
    “Fine,” she responded with a sigh. “Switch the channel.”
    I felt a little guilty that I’d be getting my own way, and asked her two more times if she was sure it was okay. Each time she insisted it was, so finally I put the movie on.
     
     
    7
    An initial client meeting is not unlike a first date. You ask questions to learn about the person’s history. You try to get a sense of her character. You try to discern whether she is trustworthy or someone who could turn out to be trouble. You gather facts and make judgments in order to decide whether or not you want things to go forward between the two of you.
    Even though I kept all of those lines of inquiry in my mind during initial client interviews, I nevertheless took most of the cases that came my way. The exceptions were drug eviction cases that lacked compelling evidence in support of the tenant, simply because they were so difficult to win and the housing authority usually settled for nothing less than an immediate move-out date. When Alec was in the housing unit, he was much more selective than I was. He joked that I was as choosy when it came to taking new cases as a drunken sailor in a bar at 2 a.m. trying to pick up women. Our different approaches resulted from our divergent philosophies about the role of legal services. He wanted our office to operate more like a boutique law firm, putting a lot of time and attention into a small, select stable of cases that addressed larger, systemic issues facing poor people, such as housing discrimination in large apartment complexes and predatory lending. In the end, he wanted to take on fewer of the small cases that I handled on a day-to-day basis at housing court, which had historically been the bread-and-butter of legal services work. I was interested in working on big cases, too. You could make a difference with them for many people, and they were also more intellectually challenging. At the same time, I wasn’t prepared to abandon eviction clients. The stakes for them were just too high. And besides, to my mind, representing them was what legal services was all about.
    When I greeted Anna in the waiting room, I noticed that she was wearing the same black winter coat that she had on at court. Her demeanor seemed a little more pleasant and relaxed. We sat down together in the conference room and she placed a large envelope on the table.
    “So your son isn’t here,” I said.
    “No, I couldn’t get in touch with him. Anyway, I brought some papers.” She began extracting documents from the envelope in a very careful manner. “I got a notice to quit and my lease. I got the court complaint you saw yesterday.”
    Before looking at the papers, I obtained some personal information from her. Her full name was Anna Rivera, she was thirty-eight years old, worked part-time as a clerk at Wal-Mart, and received monthly SSI benefits. SSI was an acronym for Supplemental Security Income, a governmental program that provided financial assistance to disabled persons with little or no income. She had been on assistance for some time because she suffered from anxiety and depression. She was now in a trial period that allowed her to continue receiving benefits, but at a lesser amount, while she tested whether or not she was able to return to the workforce.
    I picked up the notice to quit from the table and began reading it. It was dated January 8, 2004 and alleged:
     
    You, your household members, or guests engaged in illegal drug activity in violation of section 6(g) and 7(b) of your lease agreement when: your son, Miguel Rivera, engaged in the illegal sale and distribution of a Class A substance (heroin) on or about