The seeds of the Tenants Advocacy Program were first planted at Cornell around 2015, through the Board of Trustees. During her 2014-16 term, Graduate Student Trustee and Cornell Law student Annie O’Toole proposed that the law school create a tenant support program, to serve the 50% of students who rent housing in Collegetown. The proposal did not gain much steam at that time.
Campus support for tenants remained mostly dormant until it reemerged with the Cornell University chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), led by Liel Sterling, the student organization’s president during the 2018-19 school year. In April 2019, Cornell ACLU partnered with the University’s Director of Off-Campus Living, Denise Thompson, to create a New York State Tenants Rights Guide as a flyer for campus distribution. Following this, Cornell ACLU began receiving messages on Facebook with further inquiries about possible recourse for poor renting situations.
In October 2019, as interest in the establishment of a tenants’ union grew, Sterling began forming a coalition of interested students from various parts of Cornell, particularly members of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) student chapter and the Student Assembly. This group of students went on to become the founding members of the Ithaca Tenants Union (ITU). In the weeks following the ITU’s formation, they received a grant from Ithaca Catholic Charities, which enabled them to hire a consultant: Pete Meyers, Director of the Tompkins County Workers’ Center. Meyers introduced ITU to other community organizers and helped rent office space for ITU at the Workers’ Center. He also facilitated a meeting with the Legal Assistance of Western New York (LawNY) about the potential of an ITU tenants’ rights “call center” (the beginnings of a hotline).
After the creation of the Ithaca Tenants Union, Student Assembly President Joe Anderson met with Beth Lyon, the Associate Dean for Experiential Learning at the Law School, to suggest revisiting the idea of providing legal support to tenants. Anderson connected Associate Dean Lyon with the ITU founders. In May 2020, ITU met with Michaela Azemi, then-Director of Pro Bono Services & Externships, who started a working group with NLG members, to create the ITU Housing Hotline. The Hotline was funded using an Engaged Opportunity Grant from the Cornell Einhorn Center for Community Engagement and supported by the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York. Flooded with calls throughout 2020, the ITU Housing Hotline was renamed the Tenants Legal Hotline (TLH) in early 2021. This clarified its legal service component and expanded its jurisdiction beyond Ithaca, to help as many tenants as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since its founding, the hotline has fielded over 4,500 calls from tenants throughout the state of New York.
In Fall 2020, Azemi facilitated the establishment of the Tenants Advocacy Practicum (TAP), taught by Professor William Niebel. The Practicum is an experiential learning course where law students assist and advocate on behalf of local tenants, including those who are facing eviction and homelessness. Available to law students in both the fall and spring semesters, this course supplies consistent legal assistance to tenants who call the Hotline and helps students fulfill their 50-hour pro bono requirement for admission to the New York State Bar. Professor Niebel supervises law students interested in providing pro bono legal assistance for tenants regardless of their enrollment status in the Practicum.
As the Practicum evolved, the Tenants Advocacy Program grew into a full-fledged legal aid program in the fall of 2024. Led by a dedicated team of full-time attorneys, faculty, and staff, TAP now operates year-round with the support of law students and a dynamic cohort of undergraduate volunteers working across a variety of roles. We now offer a range of structured opportunities such as internships, externships, and fellowships, allowing students and recent graduates to deepen their legal advocacy experience while serving tenants across upstate New York.
In 2024, TAP joined the Monroe County Tenant Defense Project (TDP), a legal coalition facilitated by JustCause and including partners such as Empire Justice Center, Legal Aid Society of Rochester (LASROC), and Legal Assistance of Western New York (LawNY). This coalition provides representation and legal advice to tenants in active eviction cases, primarily in Rochester City Court. Building on this partnership, TAP launched the Rochester Eviction Defense Project in 2025, formally expanding our legal services to tenants in the Rochester area and delivering the same legal guidance and court representation to a new community in need.
