Andrew Scherer

Andrew Scherer is the Policy Direc­tor of the Impact Center for Public Interest Law at New York Law School and a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at the law school, where he teaches Land Use Regulation. He also directs the Impact Center’s Right to Counsel Project.

Professor Scherer is the author of the treatise, Residential Landlord-Tenant Law in New York (Thomson Reuters), originally published in 1994 and updated annually, and of numerous law review articles and other published works.

For many years, Professor Scherer has played a prominent role in access to justice, housing policy and other public interest issues, locally, nationally and internationally. Professor Scherer has been an advocate for the right to counsel in civil matters, particularly eviction proceedings, for over thirty years. He has written law review articles on the topic for the Harvard Civil Liberties Civil Rights Law Review, NYU Review of Law and Social Change and Cardozo Public Law, Policy and Ethics Journal, among others. He was lead counsel in Donaldson v. State of New York, a class action that sought to establish a right to counsel for low-income tenants facing eviction. (While the case was ultimately dismissed by an appellate court, it led to significant funding for eviction-prevention legal services by New York City.) Under Professor Scherer’s direction, the Impact Center’s Right to Counsel Project currently focuses on working with the NYC Coalition for a Right to Counsel in Housing Court and others advocating for NYC legislation establishing a right to counsel in housing cases.