Full Name
Yiyang Wu
Position Title
Partner
Organization/Affiliation (full name)
Relman Colfax PLLC
Speaker Bio
Yiyang Wu is a Partner at Relman Colfax. Yiyang joined the firm in 2014. Her civil rights practices focuses primarily on housing discrimination, fair lending, and police accountability.
Yiyang has obtained numerous verdicts and settlements across a variety of discrimination and other civil rights cases. She was part of the trial team that prevailed in Saint-Jean, et al. v. Emigrant Mortgage Co., et al., a reverse redlining suit against a New York Bank that targeted African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods with predatory home refinance loans. In 2016, a Brooklyn jury found the lender liable for discrimination under all counts of federal and state anti-discrimination laws. In Gilead Community Services v. Town of Cromwell, Yiyang achieved a landmark ruling holding that municipalities are not immune from the assessment of punitive damages by a jury, paving the way for all of Plaintiffs’ disability discrimination claims to proceed to trial. Most recently, she co-authored a Fourth Circuit appellate brief in Hicks v. Ferreyra, et al., in which a unanimous panel upheld the denial of qualified immunity in a Bivens suit, establishing—as a matter of first impression—that officers who fail to present certain claims at the trial stage waive their rights to do so on appeal.
Yiyang has also done substantial work on the issue of harassment in housing. She has trained and written extensively on cutting-edge issues pertaining to the evolving body of law of harassment under the Fair Housing Act, including neighbor-on-neighbor and sexual harassment. Yiyang helped draft a successful Second Circuit appeal in Francis v. Kings Park Manor, Inc., et al., which upheld a Fair Housing Act claim brought against a landlord for unreasonably failing to protect a tenant from racial discrimination. Yiyang has also successfully litigated sexual harassment cases against landlords and housing providers who engage in quid pro quo sex discrimination and/or create a hostile housing environment for their tenants based on sex. She was recently part of the team that achieved a $400,000 settlement on behalf of eight women and a local fair housing organization in Oswego, New York who alleged that a local landlord engaged in a long-standing practice of demanding sexual favors as a condition of tenancy.
Currently, Yiyang represents twenty-one fair housing organizations in a systemic housing discrimination case against the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), challenging Fannie Mae’s discriminatory maintenance of its “real estate owned” (REO) properties around the country. The case has survived two motions to dismiss and is the first time that courts have extended the Fair Housing Act to the REO industry.
Yiyang graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a Toll Public Interest Scholar and an Articles Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Prior to joining the Firm, Yiyang was a law clerk for the Honorable Andre M. Davis on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and for the Honorable Mary A. McLaughlin on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Yiyang is an adjunct professor at Howard University School of Law. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association Educational Fund as Treasurer (2018-2019) and Director (2019-2020). She currently serves on the Nominations Committee of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Washington, D.C. Area.
Yiyang has obtained numerous verdicts and settlements across a variety of discrimination and other civil rights cases. She was part of the trial team that prevailed in Saint-Jean, et al. v. Emigrant Mortgage Co., et al., a reverse redlining suit against a New York Bank that targeted African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods with predatory home refinance loans. In 2016, a Brooklyn jury found the lender liable for discrimination under all counts of federal and state anti-discrimination laws. In Gilead Community Services v. Town of Cromwell, Yiyang achieved a landmark ruling holding that municipalities are not immune from the assessment of punitive damages by a jury, paving the way for all of Plaintiffs’ disability discrimination claims to proceed to trial. Most recently, she co-authored a Fourth Circuit appellate brief in Hicks v. Ferreyra, et al., in which a unanimous panel upheld the denial of qualified immunity in a Bivens suit, establishing—as a matter of first impression—that officers who fail to present certain claims at the trial stage waive their rights to do so on appeal.
Yiyang has also done substantial work on the issue of harassment in housing. She has trained and written extensively on cutting-edge issues pertaining to the evolving body of law of harassment under the Fair Housing Act, including neighbor-on-neighbor and sexual harassment. Yiyang helped draft a successful Second Circuit appeal in Francis v. Kings Park Manor, Inc., et al., which upheld a Fair Housing Act claim brought against a landlord for unreasonably failing to protect a tenant from racial discrimination. Yiyang has also successfully litigated sexual harassment cases against landlords and housing providers who engage in quid pro quo sex discrimination and/or create a hostile housing environment for their tenants based on sex. She was recently part of the team that achieved a $400,000 settlement on behalf of eight women and a local fair housing organization in Oswego, New York who alleged that a local landlord engaged in a long-standing practice of demanding sexual favors as a condition of tenancy.
Currently, Yiyang represents twenty-one fair housing organizations in a systemic housing discrimination case against the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), challenging Fannie Mae’s discriminatory maintenance of its “real estate owned” (REO) properties around the country. The case has survived two motions to dismiss and is the first time that courts have extended the Fair Housing Act to the REO industry.
Yiyang graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was a Toll Public Interest Scholar and an Articles Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Prior to joining the Firm, Yiyang was a law clerk for the Honorable Andre M. Davis on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and for the Honorable Mary A. McLaughlin on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Yiyang is an adjunct professor at Howard University School of Law. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association Educational Fund as Treasurer (2018-2019) and Director (2019-2020). She currently serves on the Nominations Committee of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of the Greater Washington, D.C. Area.
Speaking At
