Letter to Governor Cuomo from bar associations urging the passage of legislation to permit fair access to monetary relief under the State Human Rights Law in cases involving unlawful discriminatory practices

SUMMARY

The New York City Bar Association joined with the Amistad Long Island Black Bar Association, Dominican Bar Association, Hispanic National Bar Association, Jewish Lawyers Guild, LGBT Bar Association of Greater New York, Long Island Hispanic Bar Association, Metropolitan Black Bar Association, Muslim Bar Association of New York, Puerto Rican Bar Association and South Asian Bar Association of New York in issuing a report urging Governor Cuomo to support legislation which would expand courts’ authority to award attorneys fees, costs, and exemplary damages from housing discrimination cases to all discrimination cases. According to the letter, the availability of fee awards would ease the financial burden on meritorious plaintiffs and increase their access to competent counsel, which, in turn, would impose more of the costs of enforcing the civil and human rights laws on discriminating defendants and perhaps reduce the burdens currently borne by state and local civil and human rights enforcement agencies. It would also bring New York’s Human Rights Law in line with comparable federal and local laws.