About William Leavitt

Mr. Leavitt worked 20 years as a staff attorney and supervising attorney for various free legal services offices in Illinois and New York, finishing as supervising housing attorney for Harlem Legal Services (now Manhattan Legal Services). He practiced in a variety of areas at legal services, especially housing and public benefits cases. He began his solo practice as a housing attorney in lower Manhattan in 2005 and has been successfully representing tenants only (no landlords) since then.

Mr. Leavitt enjoys forcing landlords to pay his legal fees after he wins a case for a tenant, if possible, so that the tenant is not prejudiced by having to pay legal fees without reimbursement. This does not happen in every case, however. Mr. Leavitt also loves to re-stabilize de-regulated apartments which were fraudulently de-regulated years ago.