Vilified
What it means to be a premier eviction lawyer
By Garry Abrams

Republished with the permission of California Lawyer Magazine.

Some people say that Andrew Zacks is the devil incarnate, a cruel, heartless scourge of the poor, the ill, and the helpless- a man who would rather feast on human suffering than filet mignon. But the 40-year-old San Francisco attorney insists that he’s simply a regular guy who has been demonized by foam-mouthed zealots, just because he happens to be the city’s leading eviction lawyer.

“We are very honorable here,” Zacks says from his Financial District office, putting a rosy tint on this sulfurous image. “It’s hard to evict someone with compassion, but that’s what we try to do.”

Maybe so. But that compassion has yet to threaten Zack’s position as a much-vilified point man in San Francisco’s small-unit housing war- one that pits landlords of small apartment buildings against their tenants over what are referred to as Ellis Act evictions. The act- a state law- was passed in 1985 and, as Zacks describes it, gives landlords “the unfettered right to go out of business.”

In San Francisco specifically, going out of business means cashing out on what may be the hottest, most expensive housing market in the country. And under the Ellis Act owners have a one-time opportunity to do so without regard for the local regulations that would otherwise apply. Supporters of the law say that it gives first-time buyers the opportunity to acquire buildings as joint owners.

But for the city’s tenant advocates the most salient thing to be said about the Ellis Act is that it is putting a huge squeeze on an already tight rental market.

As the San Francisco Bay Guardian, and alternative weekly newspaper, opined earlier this year, the Ellis Act has become “the loophole of choice for greedy landlords who want to avoid the city’s rent-control and condominium conversion laws.” The paper also singled out Zacks for handling more Ellis Act evictions than any other attorney in the city.

The publicity, says Zacks, was good for business. “I used to get only 10 to 15 calls a day.” Now, he claims to get 50. Still, it hasn’t been altogether pleasant for him. And he was clearly rattled when a group of activists staged a protest outside his Noe Valley home last December for the benefit of the press. Forewarned by a local news reporter, Zacks sent his three kids to a local coffee shop so they wouldn’t have to see their dad being reviled.

Like most of us, Zacks doesn’t think of himself as a bad guy. “I advocate for a class of individuals who are an oppressed minority,” he says of his clients, who feel burdened by the city’s pro-tenant regulations. He also says that he and his clients often work with evictees to help them find other housing.

“I’m not an eviction lawyer at all,” he declares. “I’m a land use and real estate expert.”