In February, the Housing Justice for Survivors Project took on a case just 24 hours before a critical deadline—and, through round-the-clock effort and creative lawyering, helped a survivor of domestic violence and her baby avoid eviction by her abusive ex-partner. The Project, part of the Housing Law Clinic, was founded in 2017 by Julia Devanthéry to train students to represent tenants who are facing housing instability due to domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking. In this case, their client was being evicted by an abusive ex-partner who owned the apartment where she was living. The couple had been in a romantic relationship, and the woman had never been asked to pay rent. “It’s common in our cases,” says Devanthéry. “People often move in together in the context of a romantic relationship and there isn’t a formal tenancy agreement between the parties.”
After the man physically attacked her while she was holding their infant child, she called the police and obtained a restraining order against him. The relationship fell apart, and the partner began eviction proceedings against her. As the owner of multiple properties, he had moved out but saw the eviction action as an opportunity to continue to exert power and control over his former partner, Devanthéry says. Although the restraining order prohibited him from contacting her or physically harming her, he threatened her and their baby with homelessness through eviction.
The Project took on the case 24 hours before a pre-trial memorandum was due to the Housing Court. Advanced clinical student Ami Kim ’25, who was in her third semester at the Clinic, “worked well into the night” in order to write the memo in less than a day, Devanthéry recalls. Not only were they under extreme time pressure, but their client had limited legal defenses to fight the eviction. Devanthéry and Kim—who graduated on May 29—came up with cutting-edge arguments that combined aspects of family law with tenant law theories, arguing that in exchange for the right to live in the apartment, their client had provided consideration including fulltime care and support of the couple’s child, and other contributions to household expenses.
The pre-trial motion was filed before the deadline, and after reading it, the landlord’s lawyer announced that the landlord was voluntarily dropping the case. “It seems he didn’t want to deal with a jury trial where we would put forth the complex and novel legal theories that involved shining a light on his history of abuse towards our client,” says Devanthéry. “So, our client won because her abuser backed down when we showed up to support her. Eviction crisis averted, thanks in large part to Ami’s incredible work.”
*Client name not included for privacy