Law Alumni Weekend Special CLE Offering
“Litigation Fair Housing Cases”
Presented by Sara K. Pratt Esquire,
Fair Housing and Civil Rights Consultant
Goals of the Session:
This session will introduce the litigation of housing discrimination cases under federal housing legislation, including the 1968 Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act and will present an overview of the HUD, local and state administrative agencies and the federal and state court systems. The session will include a discussion of the major past housing discrimination cases and current housing discrimination cases that are pending before the federal courts. The course is designed to cover all major categories of discrimination set forth under the Fair Housing Act, as well as to identify other areas of discrimination and other issues that have been examined by state and local fair housing and other anti-discrimination laws. The speaker will discuss how to file a discrimination suit or complaint in federal and state courts, as well as in the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development administrative process. The speaker will also discuss the persons and/or resources available to provide assistance in filing a suit, and will discuss the investigation process, some of the available remedies for plaintiffs, and important lawyering skills and ethical issues that come up in housing discrimination matters.
SARA K. PRATT
Sara Pratt consults on fair housing and civil rights issues. She has worked as an attorney, trainer and civil rights expert for twenty-eight years.
She has trained thousands of community groups, investigators, conciliators, industry representatives and advocates on fair housing and other civil rights issues. Among her major training events are HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity national FHAP conferences in 2000, 1998 and 1996, numerous HUD-sponsored training events for state and local fair housing agencies and FEHO staff throughout the country, and numerous presentations for builders and developers, property managers, municipal housing officials, and others. She is currently a task lead on HUD’s Fair Housing Accessibility FIRST project, which deals with the accessibility requirements for newly constructed multifamily housing.
She, along with Michael Allen, wrote “Addressing Community Opposition to Affordable Housing Development: A Fair Housing Toolkit” in 2004 in conjunction with the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Pratt served as Director of Enforcement and Compliance for the National Fair Housing Alliance from May 1999 to December 2000. In that capacity, she directed NFHA’s national enforcement and compliance activities and worked on national fair housing policy and legislative issues.
She was Director of the Office of Enforcement in HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity in Washington, D.C. for 1993-1999 and Deputy Assistant General Counsel for Fair Housing in HUD’s office of General Counsel and interpretative materials, written and provided training on substantive federal regulations, directed individual and systemic investigations, developed budget proposals for contracting in support of fair housing enforcement and worked with a number of federal agencies including the HUD, EEOC, the Department of Justice and the United States Department of Agriculture, to ensure fair enforcement of the law. She has testified before Congress on fair housing issues. Former Vice-President Al Gore presented her with a special award for writing a regulation in “plain English.”
Ms. Pratt graduated from St. Andrews Presbyterian College and the University of Arizona College of Law.
She can be reached at sleepratt@aol.com , or at 301-891-7272.