Relman Colfax is pleased to announce that Zach Best has joined the partnership.
Since joining the firm in 2020, Zach has been a trusted advisor to financial institutions, technology companies, and non-profit organizations on a wide range of issues related to fair lending, fair housing, and consumer protection. His deep expertise and practical guidance have helped clients institute best practices and respond to the evolving legal landscape in these critical areas.
Among other things, Zach assists clients with ongoing fair lending monitoring, conducting fair lending risk assessments, and navigating complex regulatory questions raised by institutions’ policies, practices, and statistical models. He has helped institutions understand key emerging issues, such as third-party risk management around digital marketing and property appraisals, and advised clients on building durable compliance management systems. Zach has also helped clients develop programs designed to increase underserved communities’ access to mainstream mortgage and small business credit, including special purpose credit programs. Most recently, Zach has guided clients through the administration’s attacks diversity, equity, and inclusion, and helped institutions understand how states and private plaintiffs are stepping into the enforcement vacuum left by the federal government.
Zach brings a thoughtful and deliberate approach to helping clients assess and mitigate civil rights and consumer compliance risk, informed by his background litigating on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants. His work is grounded in a longstanding commitment to advancing equity and opportunity for people who are historically marginalized, as well as a commitment to providing the highest-quality legal advice on civil rights compliance and best practices. He has spoken on emerging fair lending issues before various boards and compliance committees, and written on topics such as disparate impact, tenant screening algorithms, and consideration of criminal history in small business lending.
In addition to his advisory work, Zach also contributes to the firm’s litigation practice. For example, Zach was part of the team that challenged efforts by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to weaken the federal disparate impact rule, and he co-authored an amicus brief in the Second Circuit explaining the importance of laws that prohibit source-of-income discrimination in housing.
Prior to joining the firm, Zach was an associate at Hogan Lovells LLP, where his practice focused on class action litigation and pro bono work. While there, Zach was a lead attorney on a team that blocked the federal government from denying the asylum rights of immigrant families illegally separated at the southern border. Before that, Zach clerked for the Judge Michael P. Shea on the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, and spent two years litigating labor, employment, and consumer protection cases for a plaintiff-side firm in Washington, D.C