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Fair Lending

Relman, Dane & Colfax is at the forefront of the legal battle against discriminatory lending practices, working on behalf of individuals, organizations, and municipalities across the nation. The firm regularly litigates landmark lending cases involving allegations of redlining (denying minority communities access to credit) and reverse redlining (targeting minority individuals and communities with predatory lending products). The firm’s experience and expertise in large-scale, complex discovery, utilizing statistics, geo-mapping technology, and other innovative litigation techniques, enables the firm to affirmatively prove that lenders and creditors—including purveyors of mortgages, and automobile and student loans, to name a few—discriminate against individuals and/or communities on the basis of race, national origin, gender, religion, and disability, in violation of the Fair Housing Act, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and state and local anti-discrimination and consumer protection statutes.

Featured Work

Saint-Jean v. Emigrant Mortgage Co.
In 2016, the firm secured a major jury verdict in a reverse redlining case against New York-based Emigrant Savings Bank and Emigrant Mortgage Company, holding Emigrant accountable for discriminatory mortgage lending practices targeting African-American and Hispanic homeowners in Brooklyn.
Morgan v. Richmond School of Health and Technology, Inc.
In 2013, in the first reverse redlining case filed against a for-profit school in the country for engaging in deceptive practices to encourage low-income African-American students to take out large federal student loans for an education that the school knew was inadequate, the firm obtained a $5 million settlement for a class of over 4,000 members.

Current Cases

Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana v. Rainbow Realty Group
The firm represents the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana and five individuals in this class action lawsuit against an Indianapolis realty company for operating a predatory and discriminatory rent-to-own scheme in the Indianapolis area. The lawsuit alleges violations of the Fair Housing Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Truth in Lending Act, and state law.

Fair Lending

Featured Work

Current Cases

Notable Victories

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