Tenant-Side Subsidized Housing Eviction Defense: Federal Notice Dismissals and Keeping the Subsidy Alive

Zak Fisher, Attorney and Founder | The Law Office of Zak Fisher

Zak Fisher is the founder of The Law Office of Zak Fisher, a tenant-side law firm based in West Hollywood, California. His practice focuses on representing tenants in eviction defense and unlawful detainer litigation throughout Los Angeles County. The firm exclusively represents tenants and does not represent landlords in eviction proceedings.

Mr. Fisher’s work encompasses California unlawful detainer law, Section 8 voucher eviction defense, tenant protections, rent stabilization, and source-ofincome discrimination claims. He represents tenants facing eviction, including individuals whose housing subsidies and voucher eligibility may be affected by the outcome of their cases. His practice also addresses related matters involving habitability, security deposits, and public housing agency voucher terminations. In addition to his housing practice, he maintains a criminal defense practice representing individuals facing misdemeanor and felony charges in California courts.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Fisher earned his Juris Doctor from UCLA School of Law in 2020 and his Bachelor of Arts from Middlebury College in 2016. He is admitted to practice law in California and has been a member of the State Bar of California since October 2020.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Fisher has been named to The National Trial Lawyers’ Top 40 Under 40 in California and serves on the organization’s Executive Committee. In 2021, he authored the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Tenant’s Attorney Training Materials, a curriculum used to train attorneys undertaking tenant-side eviction defense. This work reflects his involvement in developing educational resources for attorneys representing tenants in unlawful detainer proceedings.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Fisher has been a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association since 2021 and is also a member of a Los Angeles Inn of Court. His professional involvement complements his work in tenant advocacy, eviction defense, and California housing law. Through his authorship of the LACBA Tenant’s Attorney Training Materials, he has also contributed to attorney education in the area of tenant representation.

• Experience

Before founding his firm in 2021, Mr. Fisher served as an Eviction Defense Fellow at Neighborhood Legal Services from 2020 to 2021, where he represented low-income tenants in unlawful detainer proceedings. Since establishing his practice, he has handled a range of tenant-side matters, including illegal evictions, habitability disputes, security deposit claims, Section 8 and housing voucher tenancy terminations, and cases involving local just-cause eviction protections and rent stabilization ordinances.

His Section 8 practice includes defending voucher holders facing eviction and addressing issues involving eviction notices, waiver arguments, and the potential loss of housing subsidies. His work also encompasses matters involving Long Beach voucher terminations and the City of Los Angeles right-tocounsel program. His legal practice draws on California’s tenant-protection framework, including Code of Civil Procedure §§ 1161 and 1167, AB 1482, the Los Angeles Rent Stabilization Ordinance, and the Ellis Act. He also handles source-of-income discrimination claims and disputes involving public housing agency voucher terminations.

In addition to housing litigation, Mr. Fisher maintains a criminal defense practice involving misdemeanor and felony cases, diversion, and expungement matters in California courts. His combined experience in housing and criminal defense allows him to address cases in which housing instability and criminal legal issues may intersect.

SESSION 1 – Proving Federal Coverage and Pleading the Notice Defect | Zak Fisher | 2:30pm – 3:30pm

The first hour covers how to prove federal coverage when the owner won’t say, which notice layer controls across the CARES Act, HUD’s 2024 rule and its pending revocation, USDA’s 2026 rescission, the voucher tenancy addendum, and state law, and how to plead the defect in the state’s framing. In California that means demurrer or motion to quash, preserving the defense in the answer, and proving it at trial. The session is taught by a tenant-side housing attorney who has litigated Section 8 voucher evictions through trial, including the overstated-notice and waiver theories that decide most of them, and who has weighed a dismissal against a resolution that keeps the subsidy intact.

BREAK | 3:30pm – 3:40pm

SESSION 2 – Keeping the Subsidy When the Eviction and the PHA Termination Run Together | Zak Fisher | 3:40pm – 4:40pm

A one-hour, tenant-side session for subsidized-housing defense counsel on keeping a voucher alive when the eviction and the PHA termination run together. The hour covers the mandatory termination trigger in 24 CFR 982.552(b)(2) and how administrative plans rewrite it, hearing rights and timing under 982.555, HAP payments during the eviction, insufficient-funding terminations under 982.454 and Notice PIH 202528, and settlement wording that keeps the family off the mandatory-termination track. The hour is taught from the eviction defense side: what unlawful detainer counsel must do in the first week to protect the hearing right, how the court case and the hearing feed each other, when to push the hearing ahead of the trial, and the settlement language that keeps a family off the mandatory-termination track. The informalhearing segment is built on the regulations and administrative-plan provisions attendees will actually have to read, and would pair well with a co-presenter who regularly appears at PHA hearings.