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Kali Schellenberg, Relman Colfax PLLC Photo

Kali Schellenberg

Attorney

Kali Schellenberg is an Attorney at Relman Colfax. Kali joined the firm in 2019. Her civil rights litigation practice includes cases involving discrimination in housing and public accommodations.

Kali is part of the team challenging discrimination against Black tourists by the City of Myrtle Beach during Black Bike Week. She is also working on the Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago v. City of Chicago lawsuit, which alleges that the City of Chicago’s affordable housing program is inaccessible to people with disabilities. That lawsuit mirrors the firm’s case against the City of Los Angeles, which resulted in a settlement ensuring that Los Angeles provide at least 4,000 highly accessible affordable rental housing units. Kali is currently monitoring the Los Angeles settlement agreement for compliance.

Prior to joining the firm, Kali was a Trial Attorney in the Employment Litigation Section of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division. She joined the Civil Rights Division through the Attorney General's Honors Program. At DOJ, she investigated and litigated individual and disparate impact employment discrimination cases based on sex, race, national origin, and service member status. Before that, she clerked for the Hon. Legrome D. Davis on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

While at Harvard Law School, she was a summer associate at Morrison & Foerster, and a legal intern at the Legal Aid Society of D.C., the Australian Law Reform Commission, and the ACLU of Hawaii.

Featured Cases

Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago v. City of Chicago
In this lawsuit, Access Living, an independent living center, challenges the City of Chicago’s failure to provide accessible, affordable housing to people with disabilities under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Fair Housing Act.
NAACP v. City of Myrtle Beach
This lawsuit, brought by the NAACP, challenges the City of Myrtle Beach’s imposition of severe traffic restrictions during Black Bike Week, the only weekend of the year where tourists are predominantly African American, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and federal civil rights laws.
Independent Living Center of Southern California v. City of Los Angeles
In 2016, Relman Colfax settled the largest affordable housing accessibility case in the nation’s history, securing an important victory for people with disabilities in Los Angeles and adding at least 4,000 affordable and highly accessible housing units in the city. The firm separately settled with the City's Community Redevelopment Agency in 2017.

Education

J.D., Harvard Law School, cum laude

A.B., Brown University

Admissions

Massachusetts
Application to D.C. Bar submitted; supervised by members of the D.C. Bar
Pennsylvania (inactive)

Clerkships

Hon. Legrome D. Davis, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania

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