Yiyang Wu

In October 2023, Relman Colfax filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Stanton Square, LLC, a housing developer, against the City of New Orleans and its City Council. The lawsuit alleges that the City of New Orleans delayed, prevented, and otherwise interfered with Plaintiff’s attempts to construct The Village at English Turn, a multi-family affordable housing apartment complex for working and middle-class individuals and families in the City of New Orleans.

In late 2021, State Street Corporation (State Street) hired Relman Colfax to complete an independent civil rights audit. The audit examined State Street’s business policies, practices, products, and services from a civil rights perspective. The final audit report was published on May 30, 2023.

This Fair Housing Act lawsuit brought by a fair housing organization and six women challenged a landlord's alleged pattern and practice of sexual harassment of female tenants and prospective tenants resulted in a damages settlement and consent decree containing innovative injunctive relief.

This case challenges the alleged unlawful detainment of an on-duty Black Secret Service agent by U.S. Park Police officers in violation of the agent's rights under the Fourth Amendment and Section 1985.

In a significant victory in the fight for fair lending, we secured a major jury verdict against New York-based Emigrant Savings Bank and Emigrant Mortgage Company for discriminatory mortgage lending. The June 2016 liability verdict was both the first case in which a jury held a bank accountable for lending practices that contributed to the country’s 2008 financial collapse, and the first reverse redlining case ever to be tried in federal court.

In October 2021, Relman Colfax obtained a precedent-setting $5.2 million jury verdict in a case involving the Town of Cromwell’s discrimination against a group home for men with mental health disabilities.  Gilead Community Services, a non-profit serving people with mental health disabilities in Connecticut since 1968, sought to open a six-person home in Cromwell, Connecticut. Responding to the discriminatory opposition of neighbors, Cromwell waged a campaign that resulted in the closure of the home in August 2015.

This systemic housing discrimination case against the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) challenges Fannie Mae’s discriminatory maintenance of its “real estate owned” (REO) properties around the country.