The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) announced the addition of two civil rights law experts to its legal team.
Janell Byrd-Chichester was named interim general counsel at NFHA. She was previously the inaugural director of the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. (LDF), and earlier in her career was chief of staff of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and a partner at the Washington, DC-based law firm Mehri & Skalet, where she started a flourishing fair housing and fair lending practice.
Sasha Samberg-Champion joined the NFHA as special counsel for civil rights, where he leads efforts to protect and advance fair housing rights and protections. Samberg-Champion comes to NFHA from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, where he served as deputy general counsel for enforcement and fair housing. Earlier in his career, he was counsel at Relman Colfax PLLC and served in the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice and in the New York Attorney General’s Office.
“The addition of Janell Byrd-Chichester and Sasha Samberg-Champion provide a breadth of expertise that well positions NFHA to defend hard-won civil rights protections for millions of people,” said NFHA’s President and CEO Lisa Rice. “Discrimination in our nation is not a relic of the past, and NFHA stands ready to ensure our country’s antidiscrimination laws and policies are enforced so that every person has fair access to the American Dream and opportunities they need to thrive.”
Photo: Janell Byrd-Chichester
