Pro-tenant or Pro-Landlord?

I took a call recently from a prospective client who confessed to me that he thought I was a “tenant’s rights advocate”.  He could not have been further from the truth.  In fact, our firm almost never represents a tenant in an eviction (to be fair, we do handle security deposit cases) and we pride ourselves on our long tradition of representing landlords.

It would, however, be fair to say that I am an advocate of landlords following the law to the letter.  There are many problems with the eviction system and landlord tenant law, especially when it comes to the Chicago Landlord Tenant Ordinance.  My own belief is that the law is too slanted in favor of tenants and does not provide landlords with appropriate chances to “cure” their violations.  That said, the law is the law.

I do advocate landlords going out of their way, whether it is within the eviction process, in the lease drafting stage of a tenancy, in the tenant screening process, or in a landlords everyday best practices, to follow the law so that the landlord can stay out of legal heat.

I make it a policy to point out the weaknesses of the law or the system to my clients regularly and attempt to show them how to do what is pragmatic to run their rental business.  What could be more pro-landlord than that?