BURLINGAME — A powerhouse law firm will represent a 97-year-old cancer patient who is battling eviction from the Burlingame house where she has lived for 66 years.

Attorney Joe Cotchett, of Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy, which has represented San Jose against Major League Baseball and the Surfrider Foundation in the Martins Beach public access fight, said two of his firm’s attorneys, working pro bono, met Monday afternoon with Marie Hatch at her cottage-style home. A Feb. 11 eviction notice gave Hatch 60 days to be out of the place she has lived since 1950.

“That woman will not leave her house,” Cotchett said in a statement.

Nancy Fineman and Nanci Nishimora will represent Hatch, who says she has no place to go and can’t afford the soaring Bay Area rents, Cotchett said. Hatch and a roommate — Georgia Rothrock, 85 — pay about $900 per month for their small house. Hatch says her original landlord promised that she could live there all her life and successive family members kept that promise in place.

But Hatch now faces eviction, as does a couple living in the house next door. Landlord David Kantz reportedly inherited both properties from his late wife and is simply following the dictates of a family trust to provide for his sons.

One of Cotchett’s partners, Nancy Fineman, told Hatch she believes the situation qualifies under wrongful eviction law. She pledged to get the oral contract enforced.

“When you see this house and you meet Marie — you can see there is a lot of love in that house,” Fineman said in a statement. “Fulfilling the promise of being able to live there for life is not charity, it’s the honorable thing to do.”

Kantz, who reportedly lives in the Sierra Nevada foothills, retained Michael Liberty, a Burlingame attorney. In a news release, Liberty indicated his client deeply regrets the situation but said the Hatch family also needs to pitch in to solve the conflict.

“Ms. Hatch is a valued tenant and accommodations must be made for her comfort and care,” the statement said. “But the landlord cannot bear sole responsibility; the tenant’s family must cooperate in this matter rather than use the media regarding a purported ‘life tenancy.'”

Hatch claims the verbal promise made to her originally has been upheld — until now.

But Liberty said that, according to the landlord’s personal knowledge going back to 1975, “no such guarantee ever existed.”

Liberty also claimed Kantz has taken a number of steps — above and beyond California law — to ease Hatch’s situation, including offering to work with potential buyers to see if she could stay on and meeting city officials to assist her in moving. Despite those efforts, said Liberty, Hatch’s family members “contacted a lawyer instead of taking actions to relocate Ms. Hatch.”

A landlord is required to serve 60-day notices, Liberty said.

“The landlord is hopeful that Ms. Hatch’s family will begin cooperating,” he said, “for the benefit of all concerned.”

Contact David E. Early at 408-920-5836, dearly@mercurynews.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/DavidEarlySr.