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The Firm

Relman, Dane & Colfax is a civil rights law firm based in Washington, D.C., with additional offices in Ohio and New Mexico.  We litigate civil rights cases in the areas of housing, lending, employment, public accommodations, education, and police accountability.  Our national practice includes individual and class action lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs who have suffered discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, national origin, color, religion, sex, disability, age, familial status, source of income, and sexual orientation.

The firm also provides legal counsel to progressive companies that demonstrate a commitment to best practices in the way they conduct business.  Such counsel includes representation of financial institutions in reporting to their regulators on fair lending and fair servicing issues.   We conduct investigations and provide counseling regarding consumer protection, privacy, lending, employment, whistleblower, and federal regulatory matters.  Our practice also includes analysis and strategy regarding public policy issues and proposed legislation affecting civil rights.

Cases in the News

Whyte, et al. v. Alston Management, et al.
On February 7, 2012, a federal jury in Fort Lauderdale, Florida awarded more than $1 million to seven families discriminatorily forced from their Central Florida homes because they had children living in their households.  After a four-day trial, the jury awarded both compensatory and punitive damages to the former residents of Pelican Lake Village, a 117-unit apartment complex located in Pahokee, Florida.  The families were forced out because the landlord wanted to rent the complex to a prison ministry seeking to house sex offenders there.  To read more about the case, click here.

Central Alabama Fair Housing Center, et al. v. Julie Magee, et al.
On November 18, 2011, Relman, Dane & Colfax, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Immigration Law Center, the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, and LatinoJustice, filed a federal class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on behalf of three Alabama fair housing groups, two individual plaintiffs, and a class of victims, alleging that a provision of Alabama's anti-immigrant law, HB 56, violates the Fair Housing Act and the Supremacy and Due Process Clauses of the U.S. Constitution and threatens to leave families across the state homeless.  To read more about these cases, click here.

Morgan v. Richmond School of Health and Technology, Inc.
On August 3, 2011, Relman, Dane & Colfax filed an amended class action complaint against Richmond School of Health and Technology, Inc. ("RSHT"), a for-profit vocational college in Chester and Richmond, Virginia.  The amended complaint alleges that RSHT uses deceptive practices to encourage students to take out large federal student loans for an education that it knows is inadequate, and that RSHT engages in "reverse redlining" by targeting African Americans and residents of low-income neighborhoods for enrollment.  As a result of these practices, students graduate from RSHT saddled with large debts but without improved employment opportunities and will have impaired credit if they default.  To read more about the case, click here.

Memphis v. Wells Fargo and Baltimore v. Wells Fargo
Relman, Dane and Colfax represents the City of Baltimore, the City of Memphis, and Shelby County, Tennessee, in landmark fair lending suits against Wells Fargo under the Fair Housing Act in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.  The suits allege that Wells Fargo has engaged in "reverse redlining" - intentionally targeting minority communities for predatory mortgage loans with discriminatory and unfair terms.  To read more about these cases, click here.