Appellate Advocates Staff Announce Formation of Wall-to-Wall Union

Staff attorneys, senior staff attorneys, senior counsel, paralegals, mailroom clerks, and social work and reentry staff at Appellate Advocates have announced their intent to join the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys - UAW Local 2325 by filing an election petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and requesting that management immediately voluntarily recognize the union.

Appellate Advocates, a public defender office handling criminal appeals and related matters, has represented indigent clients in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island since its founding in 1995 in the aftermath of the Legal Aid Society strike of 1994. In order to avoid a protracted NLRB election, Appellate Advocates staff has called on management to voluntarily recognize their union and begin directly bargaining with them. Once the union is recognized, a majority of New York City’s appellate public defense providers will be unionized for the first time in three decades. Read more here.