Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) has hired Nadine Cohen to lead its new Consumer Rights Project.  She re-joins GBLS after an absence of over 20 years.  Ms. Cohen is a prominent civil rights attorney and nationally-known expert on fair housing issues, who has practiced law since 1977.  She most recently worked at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, serving as lead attorney in such areas as fair housing, mortgage lending discrimination, school desegregation, employment, affirmative action and other civil rights issues.  She also led the Committee as Interim Director for 2 years.  From 1996 to 1999, she was in private practice  handling  employment discrimination case litigation, wage and hour cases, and housing discrimination cases.  

Ms. Cohen worked at GBLS from 1976-1986, first as a paralegal then as an attorney handling cases in the Family Law Unit, the Juvenile Law Reform Project, the Individual Rights Unit, and the Employment Unit.  In 1986 she joined the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law  to head the Committee’s Fair Housing Project. 

For over 20 years Attorney Cohen has litigated numerous housing discrimination cases in federal and state courts.  She has worked with community groups in Boston to change the discriminatory lending practices of banks and mortgage companies, achieving settlements that significantly increased mortgage lending to people of color in the greater Boston area. 

Ms. Cohen has received numerous awards, including the Women’s Bar Association Lelia J. Robinson  Award, two NAACP awards, a National Lawyers Guild Award, and a City of Newton Human Rights Award.  She was a Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly Top Ten Lawyer in 2004.  As a result of her commitment to public interest law, Harvard Law School awarded her the Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship in 1994.

GBLS’ Consumer Rights Project will fulfill a long unmet need in greater Boston.  It is a particularly timely project in view of the current foreclosure crisis.  Attorney Cohen said that she is “very excited to be back at GBLS and be part of such a thriving, dynamic organization.  The Consumer Rights Project will focus on issues of predatory lending, foreclosure prevention, credit discrimination, unfair debt collection practices and small claims court procedures, among other issues.  So many of these issues directly impact the lives of GBLS’ clients.”  She is looking forward to “developing a vibrant consumer rights practice that will implement collaborative strategies, including class action lawsuits, individual case representation, and legislative and administrative advocacy, to address these important issues.”

GBLS is the primary provider of free, non-criminal legal assistance in the greater Boston area.  GBLS assists low-income individuals, families, and community-based organizations in a wide range of poverty law matters.  GBLS uses a number of legal approaches to address both individual client needs as well as systemic problems, including individual client assistance ranging from legal advice to full representation as well as community legal education and outreach, class action litigation, and legislative and administrative advocacy.

For more information, please contact:

Linda Lank, Communications Director                 

617-603-1606                 

llank@gbls.org