Mark Melton stands in the eye of a storm, a waiting area outside the 1-1 Justice of the Peace Court, in the South Dallas Government Center, an uninspiring building off Interstate 20. Two other lawyers whip around the room, clutching clipboards and trying to reach about two dozen tenants in the next 20 or so minutes before court is called into session. Two legal assistants sit at a card table, hurrying through paperwork with clients. Melton, a partner at Holland & Knight who specializes in tax law, has the height and build of an edge rusher, one who prefers Maker’s Mark to protein shakes, with a charcoal beard and a fleeing hairline. Today, he’s wearing a tailored navy blue suit with a baby blue tie, a lighter blue dress shirt, and black Oxfords. If the outfit doesn’t make it clear enough, Melton, 46, is perched near a sign that reads, in English and Spanish, “FREE ATTORNEY FOR TENANTS.”
Sixty-one cases are on this Friday’s eviction docket. Years of data show that without an attorney arguing their case, nearly all of them will lose their apartments in a matter of minutes. The attorneys are here to stop that, if they can.
“This is a well-oiled machine now,” Melton says, still avoiding the fray. “I think I’ll fuck it up if I jump in.”
The machine is the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, a team of 10 lawyers and seven support staffers. Housing experts have not been able to find another operation like it in the entire country. Legal Aid works in the same space but is federally funded and far more limited in terms of whom it can serve. Melton started this work with his wife, Lauren, in the first week of the pandemic. It began as a Facebook post to explain how business owners could navigate lockdown. Then it morphed into tenant advocacy and took over their lives.
Four years later, and three years after incorporating the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, Melton spends his time fundraising, educating justices of the peace about housing law, advocating to elected officials, and recruiting more attorneys, doing the work that makes the machine more efficient. Today that means convincing at least one client that she needs help. About half of today’s defendants will not show up at all, which is typical. Maybe they couldn’t find transportation. Maybe they felt the decision had already been made. In his 1-1 Court, Justice of the Peace Thomas Jones will issue immediate eviction judgments on every contested case where the tenant is absent.
With minutes to go, attorney Nichole Harden is trying to get a woman wearing pajama pants and Crocs to sign her retainer for the day, which will allow her to represent the woman pro bono. “I don’t know what’s going to happen if you go up there by yourself,” Harden says. “But I will represent you, and I believe I can get it dismissed.” The landlord filed the eviction under the woman’s middle and last names, which violates state property code. She eventually signs, and Harden wins a dismissal an hour later.
Melton realized early in the pandemic that, without legal representation, tenants who face eviction were essentially being asked to argue in a language foreign to them. Their reflex too often is to narrate intimate tragedies rather than point out that their landlord didn’t give them enough notice or didn’t deliver the notice in a legal fashion or didn’t file notice with the court using a business name as it is registered with the Secretary of State. Judges need a legal argument, not an emotional one.
When he began, Melton suspected landlords weren’t following the law and that nobody was in court to check them. The first year proved him right. With three attorneys, they litigated 853 cases and won 96 percent of them, which saved taxpayers millions of dollars in support services that would otherwise have gone to evictees.
“It’s easy to win when you’re right,” Melton says. “And landlords just don’t do it right. Ninety-six percent of the time.”