Relman Colfax is pleased to announce that Rebecca Livengood has joined the partnership.
Since joining the Firm in 2019, Rebecca has distinguished herself as a fair housing and civil rights litigator, securing numerous victories and settlements on behalf of clients who have experienced discrimination in housing, provision of public services, public accommodations, prison conditions, and abusive police practices. Rebecca represented members of the Black, Gullah Geechee community on Sapelo Island, Georgia, as part of the team challenging public service discrimination there in Drayton et al. v. McIntosh County. As part of that team, she achieved ground-breaking settlements with the State and the County, ensuring improved services for the Gullah Geechee community. Rebecca was also part of the litigation team that secured a $53 million settlement agreement with Fannie Mae arising from its treatment of foreclosed properties. The settlement—one of the largest in the history of the Fair Housing Act—directed millions of dollars in funds to promote homeownership, neighborhood stabilization, access to credit, property rehabilitation, and residential development across the nation.
As former staff attorney with the Equal Justice Initiative and Skadden Fellow at the ACLU of New Jersey, Rebecca also brings to the Firm substantial experience challenging prison conditions, and she led the Firm’s constitutional and disability rights suit concerning COVID practices in a New York State prison in Harper v. Cuomo.
Rebecca has significant amicus experience as well, most recently authoring an amicus brief on behalf of Alabama Fair Housing Organizations in Merrill v. Milligan, a Voting Rights Act case challenging Alabama’s congressional map. At the ACLU-NJ, Rebecca authored and argued several amicus briefs before the New Jersey Supreme Court.
Currently, Rebecca is representing affordable housing developers in a case challenging the town of Brookline, New Hampshire’s exclusionary zoning ordinance. Brookline, like so many high-opportunity towns, responded to the prospect of affordable housing development by enacting prohibitive measures aimed at preventing construction of affordable housing for families. Rebecca is also part of the team representing Plaintiff-Relator Bryan Bashin in a suit concerning the inaccessibility of California’s parks reservations website to people with disabilities.
Rebecca graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School. She served as a law clerk to Judge Michael Chagares on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and to Judge Stewart Dalzell on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Please join us in welcoming Rebecca to the partnership.