Small Claims: An Attorney's Journey to Seek Justice and Redemption in a Soup Kitchen Legal Clinic

By Steve Gottlieb Esq.

Small Claims is the story of the triumphs and tragedies of attorney Steve Gottlieb as he provides weekly legal assistance to the attendees of an upstate New York soup kitchen. From restoring tenancy rights for a disabled tenant to winning a multimillion-dollar settlement for a severely injured infant, Small Claims illustrates the true value and personal satisfaction along with the struggles of helping the needy, the disabled, and the elderly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543986891

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Copyright © 2020 Steve Gottlieb

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Ebook edition published in 2020.

ISBN 978-1-54398-688-4 eBook 978-1-54398-689-1

To my grandson Luka Melone Cerat-Gottlieb

Special Thanks to All Who Made Small Claims Possible

To Ricki Abramson, who always shows me the right path to travel,

To my son, attorney Dorien Gottlieb,

To the staff attorneys at both Bronx Legal Services and Legal Services of the Hudson Valley,

To my editor and friend, Mike Rosler,

To my copyeditor and lifelong friend, Allan Edmands,

To attorney Peter Frank, a beacon for the needy,

To attorney John Fisher, a shining inspiration and source of support,

To all my poker buddies, who are always all in,

To all of my clients and friends whom I met at the soup kitchen, Bronx Legal, and the Cedar Street Salvation Army,

To the staff and clients at the Family Inn and the Darmstadt Shelter,

A very special thanks to Rev. Darlene Kelley and all of the staff at the Clinton Avenue United Methodist Church Caring Hands Soup Kitchen,

To Susan Brown and Judith Singer, for their wisdom and insight,

To my mentor, Sister Mary Ellen Burns.

Contents

Disclaimer

Foreword

August 1990: Bronx County Housing Court

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

So, What Happened to My Clients?

Answer to Question 99

About the Author

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Although its form is that of an autobiographical journal, it is not one. Space and time have been rearranged to suit the convenience of the book, and with the exception of public figures, any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. The opinions expressed are those of the characters and should not be confused with the author’s. Names, characters, businesses, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Although I am a lawyer, I am not your lawyer. Reading this book does not create an attorney-client relationship between us. This book should not be used as a substitute for the advice of a competent attorney admitted or authorized to practice in your jurisdiction. Lastly, I have spoken to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of clients in the course of my practice and have developed and used many characters and their stories in my book that could be considered composites without revealing personal details about their lives.

Foreword

And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’ ~Matthew 25:40

THE LAWYER IS IN THE HOUSE! I yell across the church gymnasium, which houses the soup kitchen, and the echo bounces off the basketball backboard, confirming the news on the small, hand-painted, sandwich board out front: FREE LEGAL CLINIC TODAY. It’s Friday, and the lawyer has arrived.

Some weeks, there are only a few souls waiting. Other weeks, there seems to be an endless line. They are people searching for solutions, a way out, a bit of light in the darkness. They all need a lawyer, and not one of them has enough money to pay for one, so they hold fast to hope and wait for Friday afternoon. They wait for Steve.

A few souls hold thick folders tightly against their chests, guarding the documents they have struggled to secure: the proof, the notarized signatures, the evidence of injustice and pain and time served. They are the ones most likely to return week after week, involved in lengthy litigation or a criminal case. They have exhausted their resources or been rejected by those seeking payment, now familiar with how things work or don’t work, burdened by layers of fatigue and disillusionment, or brimming with excitement for the chance to tell their story once again. They wait their turn with those more fortunate souls, lighter somehow without those thick files, the first-timers, inexperienced and wondering what to do next, free from a long history with—and intimate knowledge of—the system.

Yet, they are all anxious; they are all waiting for help. Many just want to know if they can sue their landlord or stave off eviction and homelessness. Others struggle with mental illness and addiction and incarceration. They all wait for a chance to go behind the partition and sit in front of the banged-up metal desk and talk to the man who can help—the lawyer.

Yet, Steve is more than a lawyer. He is a friend and a lifeline. He is the one who reaches in his pocket to hand them bus fare, who gives them advice, who has the patience and compassion to understand even the bruised and beaten and guilty. He listens. He cares. He pats them on the shoulder and hands them his card. Yes, they can call him. Yes, he’ll be thinking of them. He’ll be there for them. He will see them next week, and we all hold on a bit longer.

Rev. Darlene L. Kelley

August 28, 2019

August 1990: Bronx County Housing Court

Sometimes you could just feel it: It was going to be a bad day. I couldn’t breathe… and I had just lost one of my tasseled loafers. The crush of the crowd in the airless, steaming, tunnel-like hallway prevented me from even bending down to retrieve my shoe. An odor of stale, wet, locker-room socks engulfed me.

I gagged as hot bile rose in my throat. Nearby, on one of the broken wooden benches, a bulky red-haired policeman and an EMS worker attempted to strap a clear plastic oxygen mask over the pale, frightened face of a thin and ragged elderly woman. Her white plastic bag was stuffed with dirt-encrusted legal papers, now spilling all over the floor. The tattered documents quickly became an unruly addition to all the cigarette butts, candy wrappers, and unspeakable patches of spit, vomit, and assorted body fluids that formed a nightmarish tapestry, all in this judicial hell that I so wished I could awake from.

Bailiffs, attorneys, landlords, and law clerks opened graffiti-covered doors that had lists of endless cases taped onto them. They shouted out the names of the next parties to go before one of the judges sitting in the tiny closets that were supposed to pass as courtrooms. The litigants were a disparate bunch of Black teenage mothers pushing baby carriages while drinking Sunny Delights and unwarily dropping cigarette ashes onto their crying babies’ heads; old men and women sadly staring at eviction notices and empty bankbooks; fast-talking and slickly dressed landlord attorneys hustling the poor, angry supers and even angrier landlords waving their rent papers and records. All here in this same tiny space, waiting, hoping, and some even praying for justice in these hallowed hallways.

Crotona Park Associates versus Rivera! screamed a sweat-covered attorney wearing a cheap wig that was riding sidesaddle.

A bailiff stepped out into the hallway and called, 163rd Street Realty Corporation versus Benítiz, second call!

Benítiz?… Benítiz… Wait… that was one of my clients on this hellish day—in fact, my very first day as an attorney at Bronx Legal Services. I quickly tried to push my way through the damp, thick, cursing crowd, calling out my client’s name.

Benítiz! Maria Benítiz!

Just as I made it to the courtroom door, my armful of client files tumbled to the floor and joined the considerable trash underfoot. On my hands and knees, I scrambled to get the files. Then, without any warning, a woman wearing a torn, red Nike sweatsuit stepped on my hand and parked her shopping bag filled with court papers on half of the files. OW!! I screamed, Please get the hell off of my hand!!

Still wincing in pain, I looked up into the woman’s bloated face, which was framed by wild locks of dyed dark brown hair with gray roots, all accented with a pair of masking-taped red-frame glasses.

I asked quietly, Ms. Benítiz?

I’ve got to admit, this surprised me: The woman reached down and slowly helped me to my feet and began assisting me to gather up the files. Then she surprised me even more: She actually smiled as she briskly brushed the filth off of my brand-new JCPenney clearance-rack blue suit and asked, "¡Hola! ¿Mi abogado?"

These were the kind of little surprises that could so swiftly turn such an awful day around. With some relief and much gratitude, I returned her smile.

Introduction

I got a call several years ago from a reporter who was interested in writing a story about my free hotline for tenants who were facing eviction. I told him that I had been informally offering this service since 1996, after I had left Bronx Legal Services. Working there right out of law school convinced me that the indigent should have access to free legal counsel.

So, with the sometimes bare-boned support of various local homelessness-prevention programs, I slowly expanded the hotline to field questions not only from low-income tenants but from virtually any person on public assistance seeking legal advice concerning problems in just about every area of the law. I guess I got them all—from tearful calls placed by abused women trying to get away from battering boyfriends or husbands, to frantic prisoners on their five-minute jailhouse call claiming they were falsely convicted. Thousands of these calls, all from folks confused about their rights, afraid of what might happen if I didn’t intervene in their legal dilemmas.

By virtue of our intensive legal training and professional position, we attorneys have the power to profoundly change people’s lives and fates by simply writing a letter, making a phone call, drafting a custody petition, or arguing a motion. We can help a family keep their home from being auctioned off, get their children out of foster care, or assist them in getting the public benefits that they are entitled to—just as easily as we can do a house closing or draft a will for our more fortunate paying clients.

Hence, the bottom line: What kind of lawyer are you? Or better yet: Ask yourself, what kind of person are you? How much time would you devote to helping the poor in your community? One hour a month? Two hours a month? Ten hours a year? The New York State Bar Association requires, under Rule 520.6, that after January 1, 2015, applicants for the bar examination commit to fifty hours a year of pro bono work in order to practice law in New York State.

On Law Day, May 1, 2012, New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman announced that lawyers have a professional responsibility to promote greater access to justice: As far back as judges and lawyers have existed, the pursuit of equal justice for all, rich and poor alike, has been the hallmark of our profession.

I asked the reporter to ponder this question: What would happen if an attorney devoted one afternoon a week, just a couple of hours, eating lunch with and seeing clients at a soup kitchen and doing whatever was reasonably required to help each client follow up on letters, phone calls, and if necessary, even court appearances? How many people could one attorney see in a year? And far more important: What might be the outcome of all these legal interventions that he or she undertook? So, it all comes down to this: What kind of impact could even one lawyer have? That quintessential question became the basis for this book.

The