Tenant Right to Counsel Law and Policy, United States, 2017-2024 (ICPSR 39350)
Version Date: Sep 29, 2025 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Emily Benfer, George Washington University Law School
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39350.v2
Version V2 (see more versions)
Summary View help for Summary
This study provides a description of state and local tenant right to counsel policies. From July 2017 through June 2024, five states, 17 cities, and one county passed legislation to formally create a right to legal counsel in eviction proceedings. These policies contain heterogeneous provisions, including their intended purposes, design and administration requirements, eligibility criteria, and when the right is triggered in the eviction process. Investigators applied longitudinal policy surveillance, legal mapping, and legal analysis techniques to describe state and local tenant right to counsel laws in 23 jurisdictions. The resulting study includes the requirements and characteristics of tenant right to counsel law, such as policy justification, dates of significance (e.g., passage, effect, implementation), program administration, eligibility criteria, court processes, and community engagement requirements, among other variables.
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
ZIP code
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Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
To describe the requirements of tenant right to counsel legislation in 5 states, 17 cities, and 1 county within the United States.
Study Design View help for Study Design
A list of jurisdictions with right to counsel legislation (RTC) was created with help from the National Coalition for the Civil Right to Counsel (NCCRC). Legislative information was then collected and reviewed for these jurisdictions, and the data was then validated through review of legal documents and confirmation with lawyers and individuals involved with RTC.
Universe View help for Universe
Jurisdictions with tenant right to counsel laws in the United States
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Data includes variables on policy justification, dates of significance, program administration characteristics, tenant eligibility criteria, court processes, and community education requirements, among other variables.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2025-03-26
Version History View help for Version History
2025-09-29 Study updated to include fully curated data and documentation.
2025-03-26 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.