Michael Hanley

Senior Staff Attorney

Michael Hanley is a senior staff attorney with the Consumer, Housing, C.A.S.H. and Community Development Unit in Empire Justice Center’s Rochester Office.  His work focuses on systemic discrimination in state and federal low-income housing programs.

Mike has been with the Empire Justice Center since 1982, and has been a practicing attorney since 1975. He was instrumental in the formulation of a major federal lawsuit, Comer v. Kemp, which successfully challenged racial segregation in housing programs in Buffalo, and Erie County.

Mike is currently Co-Chair of the Public Interest Committee of the Real Property Law Section of the New York State Bar Association, and is the most recent past Chair of the New York State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.  He has written several publications analyzing the civil rights disparities in housing, including most recently an article in the January/February 2008 issue of “Poverty and Race” (Vol. 17, No. 1),

With respect to code enforcement, his work included a study regarding effective code enforcement strategies in connection with the ABA’s “National Housing Justice and Field Assistance Project.”  That study recommended expansion of equity powers for city courts in upstate NY similar to the amendments to the City Court and District Court Acts finally enacted in 2005.  Mr. Hanley is the co-chair of the Housing Committee of Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning in Rochester, and was instrumental in the drafting the Lead Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act which went into effect in the City of Rochester in 2006. He has is also currently involved as a member of the Coalition to Eliminate Lead Poisoning in New York State in the drafting of statewide lead-paint legislation.  From 1998 to 2004 he was a member of the New York State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and or four years served as chair.

Practice Area(s):
Housing