2006 marked the eighth full year of Kramer Levin’s Associate Service Program, in which the firm staffs an ongoing position at South Brooklyn Legal Services. Three associates per year rotate through this position — each spending several months representing low-income tenants in Housing Court full time. Externs remain Kramer Levin employees on full salary. Corporate associate Tracy Sigal and litigation associates Christos Yatrakis and Darren Cohen served in 2006 and litigation associate Guilaine Senécal took over in early 2007. The Kramer Levin extern functions as a full-fledged Housing Unit lawyer, counseling individuals on emergency intake, filing motions in Housing Court to stop evictions, solving public benefits problems, and negotiating settlements with landlord attorneys. Since 1998, our associates have counseled nearly 1,400 clients, represented more than 350 in active Housing Court cases, and also litigated several Article 78 proceedings in New York Supreme Court.

The externship program not only provides associates with unparalleled hands-on experience in court and working with clients, it also delivers legal services to the poor with unusual efficiency for a private firm pro bono program. Ed Josephson, South Brooklyn’s Director of Litigation, calls the Kramer Levin externship “a tremendous addition to our office’s housing work that has allowed us to assist hundreds of families who otherwise would have faced homelessness due to chronic underfunding of the Legal Services program.”

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