A.J. is a senior housing attorney in the Rochester office. He represents tenants with a variety of housing issues including evictions and inhabitable conditions, with a focus on impact litigation to affect systemic change. He also provides legal information to community groups, non-profit organizations, and other attorneys. Prior to joining Empire Justice Center, A.J. represented hundreds of clients facing eviction in Rochester City Court. In addition, he has handled numerous administrative hearings regarding public benefits, worker’s compensation, and housing subsidies, including RHA/Section 8 hearings, unemployment insurance benefits hearings, and DHS hearings. Further, A.J. has significant experience working on issues related to police accountability. He has also conducted and published social psychology research at MIT’s Saxe Lab and Harvard’s Moral Cognition Lab. He graduated magna cum laude with distinction from Hofstra University, and he graduated from Hofstra University Law School as the Medical Malpractice Project Director of the Law, Logic, Technology Lab. In his free time, A.J. likes to cook and spend time with his wife and cats.

Haley Kulakowski is a Public Benefits Attorney at Empire Justice’s Rochester location. Haley practices in public benefits law, focusing on the Home Energy Assistance (HEAP), and childcare assistance programs. She works on impact cases and administrative and legislative advocacy to improve public benefits program and ensure equitable access to benefits for all New Yorkers. Haley earned her undergraduate degree from Syracuse University and her juris doctorate degree from Harvard Law School, where she was a student attorney at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and co-Editor in Chief of the Harvard Journal on Law and Gender. Haley is admitted to practice law in New York and to the federal bar in the Western District of New York. In her free time, she enjoys reading, walking and football (go Bills!)

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