Members of the Brooklyn Defender Services union picket after contract negotiations broke down. The union and management bargained for approximately 21 hours before employees launched the strike.
Courtesy ALAA-UAW Local 2325
By CARTER MYERS-BROWN
More than 500 unionized attorneys and legal staff at Brooklyn Defender Services, the city’s second-largest public defender organization that represents 40,000 people a year across Brooklyn and Queens, walked off the job Thursday after marathon contract negotiations failed to produce a new labor agreement before the union’s strike deadline. The previous contract expired June 30.
Representatives for Brooklyn Defender Services and the Association of Legal Advocates and Attorneys–United Auto Workers Local 2325 bargained for approximately 21 hours—from Wednesday morning until roughly two hours before the strike deadline Thursday—as the two sides exchanged counterproposals in an effort to reach a tentative agreement.
Andrew Eichen, co-chair of the BDS union said negotiations had been slow throughout the bargaining process, with management often addressing only a handful of proposals at a time before discussions accelerated in the days leading up to the contract’s expiration.
“I think the bargaining was extremely frustrating,” Eichen told The Chief on July 17. “We came in … with a position on every single issue in the contract. We did our homework.”
Eichen said meaningful movement came only after union members voted to authorize a strike and set a deadline for a work stoppage.
“Without that pressure, I think management would have continued dragging us along,” he said.
Although Eichen acknowledged that management made some movement on wages and healthcare during the last week of bargaining, he said those improvements came bundled with other proposals the union considered unacceptable.
“They tried to sell that to us as a package deal in which we would have to accept all their non-monetary offers without negotiation,” he said.
No additional bargaining sessions scheduled
Union members are seeking a higher wage floor, lower health insurance costs, additional sick leave and the elimination of a location-tracking application used for timekeeping. They oppose management’s proposal to extend the probationary period for new employees from six months to one year and are seeking broader bereavement leave protections. T
he union is also seeking to restore broader remote work opportunities after BDS last year limited one day of weekly remote work primarily to experienced attorneys and social workers.
Eichen said many of the remaining disagreements center on management’s discretion over workplace policies.
“If they can deny something, we have seen that they are going to deny it,” he said. “We don’t want that discretion. We want to know what the rules are, and we want to play by them and live by them.”
The union argues improving workplace conditions is essential to retaining experienced employees who represent low-income New Yorkers in criminal, family, immigration and housing matters.
No additional bargaining sessions had been scheduled as of Friday, according to Eichen, who said the union remains prepared to return to the table if management is willing to address its remaining concerns. Until then, he said, members plan to continue striking and picketing into next week.
BDS management disputed the union’s characterization of them “dragging” negotiations along.
“After months of intensive and good faith bargaining with the BDS Union, we regret to announce that we have not yet reached a tentative agreement, and staff have begun a work stoppage,” executive director Lisa Schreibersdorf said in a statement. She added that the organization “stand[s] ready to continue bargaining to reach a swift and equitable resolution.”
Schreibersdorf said supervisors would assume responsibility for active cases during the strike, emphasizing that “it is our highest priority to ensure that our clients are not negatively impacted by the work stoppage.”
The union also criticized BDS’s handling of communications after the strike began. In a July 17 post on the union’s Instagram account, members alleged that management locked striking employees out of their email accounts early Thursday morning and replaced individualized out-of-office messages with a generic notice reading, “I am not working today.”
According to the union, management overrode messages employees had prepared to help clients navigate the work stoppage. The union contended the change undermined members’ efforts to ensure clients continued receiving appropriate legal guidance while avoiding confusion during the strike.
But a spokesperson did respond to a request for comment on the union’s allegations about the employee messages.
Strike could spread
In September 2025, workers picketed demanding Schreibersdorf’s resignation after she allegedly urged a union delegate to decertify Local 2325 in exchange for higher pay and a lighter workload. At a rally then, attorney Alex McHugh said Schreibersdorf denied his vacation request over his union participation, telling colleagues she “slammed the door in my face, still screaming.” BDS denied violating its contract at the time.
No additional bargaining sessions had been scheduled as of Friday, according to Eichen, who said the union remains prepared to return to the table if management is willing to address its remaining concerns. Until then, he said, members plan to continue striking and picketing into next week.
The strike could expand in the coming days. ALAA chapters representing workers at Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem and The Bronx Defenders are also negotiating contracts and are considering going on strike, raising the possibility that hundreds public defender attorneys and legal staff across the city’s public defense system could ultimately walk off the job.
Attorneys at the Legal Aid Society, the largest legal nonprofit in the city, who narrowly avoided walking out on strike last year, are also in negotiations with management about a possible raise under a wage reopener clause, though they are not permitted to walk out on strike until their current contract expires in 2028.