Jordan Dressler, the director of the recently created New York City Office of Civil Justice, discusses Mayor Bill

de Blasio’s ambitious five-year plan to provide free or low-cost legal assistance to every low-income New Yorker

facing eviction, deportation, or other potentially life-altering civil proceedings. The interview focuses in detail

on the benefits this guarantee is expected to have on tenants confronting landlords in Housing Court (the latter

almost always represented by lawyers). Hosting this episode of New Thinking are

Ignacio Jaureguilorda, director of Poverty

Justice Solutions, our program that seeks to close

the justice gap in Housing Court, and Robert V. Wolf, the Center for Court Innovation’s director of communications.