About Raun J. Rasmussen

Raun joined the LSNYC family in 1985 as a housing attorney at South Brooklyn Legal Services (a former program of LSNYC). He later became SBLS’s Director of Housing and then Director of Litigation, supporting the development of affirmative impact litigation, helping to create one of the first foreclosure prevention projects in the country, and creating and supervising the Child Care Network Support Project, which provided legal services and training to home-based childcare providers. In 2003, he became LSNYC’s Chief of Litigation and Advocacy, working to coordinate and improve the quality and impact of LSNYC’s legal work city-wide, and directing the Legal Support Unit, which provides litigation and advocacy leadership, support, coordination and training to LSNYC advocates across the city.

Since he became LSNYC’s Executive Director in 2011, Raun has helped to unite the city-wide program with a vision of hard-hitting, transformative litigation and advocacy, and a deep commitment to creating an organization that is committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and that lifts up and celebrates the roles of LSNYC’s entire staff in delivering racial, social and economic justice to our clients.

Raun has written numerous articles on residential displacement, foreclosure-related issues, ethics, affirmative litigation and childcare work. He has been a recipient of the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest Felix Fishman Award for Exemplary Service, the New York County Lawyers Association Public Service Award, and the New York City Bar Association Legal Services Award. He is a member of the Permanent Commission on Access to Justice and serves on the board of the New York Legal Services Coalition. He holds a B.A. from Amherst College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

The Raun J. Rasmussen Justice Fellowship