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Division of Housing and Community Renewal Tenant (DHCR)

Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s aggressive creative lawyering has resulted in many of the most important tenant victories of the 21st century as well as the most trial victories of any tenant law firm in New York City.

These successes have led to the highest honors and awards from the bar and ranking organizations. Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. is the only landlord-tenant firm with under 30 attorneys that has received a Chambers ranking, an AV® Preeminent Martindale-Hubbell rating, Super Lawyers honors, Best Lawyers, Best Law Firm,s and selection into the Registry of Preeminent Lawyers, as well as the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.

Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. is also the only landlord-tenant law firm in New York City named by Chambers & Partners as New York’s Leading Real Estate Lawyers. Honoring Adam Leitman Bailey, Chambers & Partners described Adam Leitman Bailey as a “tenacious and confident litigator who is quick-witted in court and respected by the judges and an extraordinary practitioner who gets great results.” When quoting a client of Adam Leitman Bailey’s, Chambers noted his “ability to anticipate things before they happen. He has been hired to litigate extremely high-profile cases…sources are highly impressed by his courtroom presence. You feel like you have a zealous advocate out there working for you, and you never worry about things when they are in his hands.”

Real Estate Weekly noted, “Adam Leitman Bailey has made a name for himself with his success winning cases in the courtroom.” The same newspaper called Adam Leitman Bailey “famous” for his landlord-tenant representation. The New York Times praised the firm’s “novel” strategy in one case and remarked in another case, where the firm prevailed representing a residential tenant, the firm “fought on… grinding through excruciating detail and obscure Perry Mason moments.” A New York State judge wrote that Adam Leitman Bailey was the “best trial lawyer” he had seen in his nine years as a housing court judge in New York City.

Besides participating in some of the most important landlord-tenant decisions during the past decade, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. attorneys have written some 90 books on landlord-tenant law, including encyclopedias and the Housing Court Reporter, a thirty year collection, organization, and analysis of over 50,000 landlord-tenant cases used by most regular housing court practitioners and all landlord-tenant judges. Among the firm’s most victorious cases that have created new law or used creative lawyering to prevail are: by using creative, aggressive and investigative lawyering Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. has played a part of some of the most prominent cases protecting tenants and tenant associations.

One of the most effective ways for landlords to evict tenants is through the landlord legally raising the rents and other legal procedures using the Division of Housing and Community Renewals rules on Major Capital Improvements, demolitions, commercial-owner, and most commonly, allowing a unit to leave the rent-regulation process by doing improvements before the move-in date.

In order to fight and protect and win in these cases, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. not only has been experts in the law but creatively and aggressively used the law and the facts to win even the most difficult cases.

Even where the tenants’ arguments are not legally sufficient to defeat the landlord’s application, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s advocacy of those arguments have on many occasions been sufficient to bring the landlord to the table with a tenant’s association or individual tenant to put together a deal that handles the tenant’s rights most favorably. These deals have included strict rules against the landlord for governance of the buildings, multimillion-dollar buyouts, and relocations to more luxurious quarters at the same or lower rent.

The firm’s cases have included:

  • Busting a major capital improvement claims by millions of dollars by pointing out that the claimed improvement was too close on the heels of another improvement of the same system for which the landlord had previously claimed a rent increase
  • Proving that the landlord’s documentation to investors contradicted its representations to the DHCR about the condition of the building systems
  • Demonstrating that the landlord was not entitled to an increase because its general maintenance of the building was not up to code requirements
  • Disproving the alleged improvements to a unit by forcing the showing of documentation which did not exist.
  • Disproving a unit owner’s commercial owner occupancy case with what The New York Times called “Perry Mason moments,” whereby the owner was caught lying on the stand when pictures proving the truth abandoned her case

The firm’s scholarship in studying and analyzing for the entire industry and the changes to the Rent Stabilization Code as they have come down have enabled the firm to acquire an intimate knowledge of the provisions of this ever-changing law in a manner to which no other firm can lay claim.

Built on that foundation, the firm’s creative and investigative lawyering has taken many plain vanilla cases and made them into landmark decisions or incredible settlements.

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