Hundreds of workers representing low-income defendants in Brooklyn and Queens walked off the job Thursday morning, after failing to reach a deal with management on wages and benefits before an 8 a.m. strike deadline.
Approximately 500 lawyers, case managers and staff at Brooklyn Defender Services and Queens Defenders have been locked in negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement for months.
Their union, the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys UAW Local 2325, has been demanding raises, more sick days, the return of its remote-work policy and better benefits. Though the strike is in effect, workers were not picketing Thursday due to the poor air quality brought on by the Canadian wildfires.
The two sides bargained for hours into dawn on Thursday in an effort to avert a strike that could impair criminal, housing and family court across the city’s two most populous boroughs. A spokesperson for the state Office of Court Administration said that courts remain operational and open — “for now.”
“While we always hope that our courts and those they serve experience no disruptions, our entire judicial system remains committed to ensuring full operations should any arise,” said the spokesperson, Al Baker. “As in the past, the [Unified Court System] continues to closely monitor these developing circumstances and hope the parties can forge meaningful resolutions.”
Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Bret Brintzenhofe, a senior defense attorney and Brooklyn Defenders union member, said he hopes management agrees to “a full and fair contract.”
“I am on strike for to be able to stay in my job and continue for the long term, to provide effective assistance of counsel as part of a team of workers — and for me, that’s about clients who are people, no matter what they’re accused of doing, who deserve dignity and respect and due process,” he said.
In a statement, Brooklyn Defender Services Executive Director Lisa Schreibersdorf said the organization “stand[s] ready to continue bargaining to reach a swift and equitable resolution.” She said that supervisors would be picking up the striking workers’ caseloads “to ensure that our clients are not negatively impacted by the work stoppage.”
Brooklyn Defender Services executive director Lisa Schreibersdorf testifies at a Council budget hearing, May 29, 2025. Credit: Screengrab via NYC.gov
Staff at Brooklyn Defender Services were not among the UAW shops who last summer went on an extended, larger strike. But its members did picket on several occasions after Schreibersdorf eliminated work-from-home schedules and allegedly required employees to install location tracking apps on their mobile phones. The union claimed Schreibersdorf violated their contract by implementing those changes without negotiations.
Tensions culminated in the fall, after the union filed a bombshell complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging Schreibersdorf offered a staff member and Local 2325 delegate a lighter workload in exchange for dissolving the union and installing what critics called a “sham union” in its place. In a recent settlement, BDS and Schreibersdorf agreed to not “actively encourage” or offer any perks in exchange for booting the union.
Last month, Schreibersdorf announced her retirement effective January 2027.
The organization has had a rocky two years.
Unionized public defenders with NYLAG and the Urban Justice Center hold a strike rally in Foley Square, July 15, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
In 2025, Brooklyn Defender Services absorbed the core work of another legal services provider, Queens Defenders, that had imploded in scandal. The founder and head of that organization, Lori Zeno, was arrested and later pleaded guilty in federal court to allegations that she used the non-profit’s funds to pay for rent in a penthouse apartment and other freebies, including luxe shopping sprees at Neiman Marcus and Ralph Lauren and a $10,000 trip to Bali.
Born in the ’90s
Brooklyn Defender Services was established in the mid-1990s out of a different labor dispute.
After unionized employees of the Legal Aid Society went on strike in 1994, then-mayor Rudy Giuliani broke the city’s exclusive contract with the organization to represent indigent clients and opened requests for proposals for other organizations to go into business with the city.
Workers at Legal Aid ended the strike, but the Giuliani administration forged ahead anyway, creating agreements with a constellation of new non-union legal organizations that spun off from the dispute — including Brooklyn Defender Services.
Brooklyn Defender Services was non-union for decades until 2021, when its staff voted to join the UAW’s ALAA as part of a post-pandemic wave of educated workers and legal staff that unionized in New York.
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