Zachary Best is Counsel at Relman Colfax. Zachary joined the firm in 2020 and practices in both the civil rights counseling and litigation groups.
Zachary’s counseling work focuses on advising lenders and online companies on best practices for complying with fair lending, fair housing, and consumer protection laws. He helps companies evaluate their policies, practices, and statistical models for civil rights and consumer protection risk, and advises them how to reduce risk and ensure their products and services are equally available to historically disadvantaged groups. His advice relates to issues that arise in the traditional lending space, as well as issues faced by financial technology and online companies.
Zachary’s litigation work has a similar emphasis on fair lending and fair housing. Zachary is currently part of a team challenging a predatory and discriminatory rent-to-own housing program in the Indianapolis area; the case alleges violations of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Fair Housing Act, Truth in Lending Act, and state consumer protection law. He is also part of a team challenging a regulatory rule issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development that would significantly weaken disparate impact law under the Fair Housing Act.
Prior to joining the firm, Zachary was an associate at Hogan Lovells LLP, where his practice focused on class action litigation and pro bono work. While there, Zachary 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 – an effort that secured the opportunity to seek asylum for hundreds of families that otherwise would have been unlawfully deported. Zachary also 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.
