ILR High Road Ithaca Fellowship
Tenants Advocacy Program

ILR High Road New York is statewide program that aims to teach ILR students practical methods for civic & community engagement and leadership. The High Road Ithaca Program offers students paid community engaged internships with partner organizations committed to social and environmental justice, diversity and equity, access and education in Ithaca and surrounding areas during the fall or spring semesters. Students work 5-10 hours a week and participate in critical reflection activities throughout the semester.

Founded in 2020, the Tenants Advocacy Program is a clinical program at Cornell Law School where law students, alumni, and undergraduate volunteers work year-round under attorney supervision to provide free legal services to residential tenants across upstate New York. Our team has helped tenants recover security deposits, obtain repairs, avoid eviction, escape domestic violence, preserve housing vouchers, and more. We currently have a full-time Director (William Niebel), Coordinator (Francheska Reed), Supervising Attorney (Kathryn Krause Wozer), and Staff Attorney (Samantha Brunn). We have 12 law student volunteers, 13 law students in our fall Practicum, and 41 active undergraduate volunteers across the following teams: Intake, Communications, Clerical, Tech, Data, Court Monitoring, and Legal Assistants.

The Tenants Advocacy Program (TAP) is offering one High Road Fellow position for the spring semester, running from late January through early May at 5-10 hours per week. TAP is a clinical program serving tenants, and its work intersects with employment law, particularly for clients who have employer-provided housing and face termination from their employment. The fellowship is intentionally flexible and will be shaped around the fellow’s interests, skills, and academic goals. Because specific assignments have not been finalized, we can offer several representative assignments that the fellow can select from to focus on or rotate between. The fellow may help develop a Canvas training course on tenant rights for the Cornell community, or conduct academic research on labor and housing, which may include writing weekly blog articles for TAP’s website. One possible research topic is the worker-occupant exception in New York landlord-tenant law. The fellow could also conduct research supporting the TAP Director’s comprehensive treatise, or research novel legal questions arising from our casework, such as clients who have lost both employment and housing, or cases involving immigrant clients. The fellow is free to assist our attorneys in handling casework and communicating with clients. The fellow may commit to a single assignment for the full semester or rotate through the assignments monthly. We are open to either arrangement and will decide together with the fellow