Victor Monterrosa, Jr. is a people’s lawyer born in Brooklyn, NY, and raised in Newark, NJ. He has a lifelong history of activism and organizing. After graduating from Science High School, Victor earned a BA from Vassar College, then returned to Newark seeking organizing opportunities, eventually becoming an attorney and professor. 

Organizing taught Victor to create and leverage people power while using law and government to reach popular goals. He worked as community educator and manager of an emergency homeless shelter for the Elizabeth Coalition to House the Homeless; as tenant organizer for the Greater Newark HUD Tenants Coalition (HTC); and as Community Partnerships and Outreach Coordinator of Ironbound Community Corporation’s Family Success Center West. Building relationships with advocacy groups and legal service agencies throughout that time, Victor regularly armed tenants with knowledge of the law to create locally tailored strategies in anticipation of speaking at City Council Meetings; entering negotiation meetings with the Newark Housing Authority; giving citywide tours to the heads of the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (NJHMFA); and educating Federal and State representatives in Washington, D.C. and Trenton, NJ. Upon graduating from Rutgers Law, he provided a range of civil and criminal legal services to homeless people ages 18-21 at Covenant House New Jersey; worked at Legal Services of New Jersey appealing denials of Social Security benefits; and he opened the boutique Tenant focused law firm, Monterrosa Law LLC. Until the NJ Supreme Court removed subpoena power from the body, Victor was a commissioner of the Newark Civilian Complaint Review Board. He also co-founded Homes for All Newark, a broad coalition of Newark residents that improved the Newark Rent Control Ordinance by way of petition, using the referendum powers of the Faulkner Act. Today, as an adjunct professor and the Managing Director of the Housing Justice and Tenant Solidarity (HJTS) Clinic of Rutgers Law School, Victor uses his broad experience as a litigator and organizer to develop third year law students’ advocacy skills inside and outside of the traditional law school classroom. He teaches students to efficiently and effectively represent tenants by filing lawsuits – claims such as excessive rent charges, rent control violations, unlawfully withheld security deposits, lease violations, and violations of local ordinances and state statutes – then using New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) to claim mandatory triple money damages and attorney’s fees. Coursework includes immersion in history, court rules, case law, articles, regulations and directives that are rigorously discussed using the socratic method and clinical law approach in seminar, case rounds, and supervision sessions. Victor is happily married with three bright and beautiful children. In his spare time he keeps the Aztec Day Count.