Tim Lambert

Tim Lambert is Counsel at Relman Colfax and joined the firm in 2024. His civil rights counseling and litigation practice focuses on fair lending and fair housing.  He works with financial institutions to develop industry-leading compliance management and to identify opportunities to extend credit in underserved markets. 

Prior to joining the firm, Tim worked for twenty years in federal enforcement and supervisory agencies.  He was one of the first members of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity where he served for twelve years in a variety of roles and helped to develop the CFPB’s fair lending program. Previously, he served as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Deputy Assistant General Counsel for Fair Housing Enforcement where he led a full range of enforcement activities and was counsel to HUD’s Office of Systemic Investigations in establishing HUD’s fair lending program.  He began his legal career as a Trial Attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Tim has deep experience in every aspect of fair housing and fair lending enforcement, supervision, rulemaking, and guidance under both the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Fair Housing Act.  His work includes credit underwriting, pricing, branching, algorithmic decision making, the use of alternative data, automated underwriting systems, Special Purpose Credit Programs, appraisal bias, and disability discrimination.

Tim played a significant role in Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) and Section 1071 rulemakings and in developing the government information systems for data submission and processing.  He previously served as the chair of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council’s (FFIEC) HMDA Subcommittee as well as the chair of the Interagency Task Force on Fair Lending.  At the CFPB, he led interagency fair lending efforts in conjunction with the federal prudential regulators, including to address appraisal discrimination through the interagency PAVE Task Force.  He is the recipient of numerous awards from the CFPB, HUD, DOJ, and the FFIEC.