Shirley Luong is a Tenants’ Rights attorney at The Legal Aid Society, the nation’s oldest and largest social justice law firm for indigent families and individuals.  With over eight years of dedicated legal service, Shirley’s mission has always been to advocate for those in need. At The Legal Aid Society, she works tirelessly to protect tenants’ rights, ensuring they are represented fairly in an often daunting legal system.  Her passion is to advance housing justice for communities of color who are disproportionately affected by housing instability and homelessness caused by structural racism and other systems of oppression. She has successfully defended over 300 eviction proceedings in state and federal courts. Her most notable accomplishments include successfully compelling a landlord to construct a wheelchair ramp for an elderly double-amputee to gain access to his home, and achieving a trial victory that ensured an elderly client’s right of succession to his mother’s rent-stabilized apartment which is also his childhood home. 

Shirley is a lifelong New Yorker; she was born and raised in Flushing, Queens. She received her Bachelor of Science from St. John’s University and Juris Doctorate from Brooklyn Law School.  Committed to serving the immigrant Asian community, Shirley joined the Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) in 2022 and continues to offer her housing expertise as a volunteer attorney at AABANY’s Pro Bono Legal Clinics. She currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Pro Bono & Community Service Committee.