Stephen M. Dane is a nationally recognized civil rights lawyer, particularly in the areas of fair housing, fair lending, and insurance discrimination. Mr. Dane was lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the class action litigation Toledo Fair Housing Center v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. ($5.35 million settlement) and was co-counsel for the plaintiffs in HOME of Richmond v. Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. ($100.5 million jury verdict). Mr. Dane is the author of many articles and book chapters in the field of fair housing, most recently Fair Housing Policy Under the Trump Administration, Human Rights Magazine, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Dec. 6, 2019).

He is an honors graduate of The University of Notre Dame (B.S., Mathematics, 1978), and received his law degree from The University of Toledo College of Law (J.D., magna cum laude, 1981). He is a former law clerk to the Honorable Pierce Lively of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 1998 Mr. Dane was selected as one of eight Lawyers of the Year by Ohio Lawyers Weekly, and is listed in The Best Lawyers in America in the field of Civil Rights. Mr. Dane is the former editor of the Civil Rights Insider, the award-winning quarterly eNewsletter of the Federal Bar Association’s Civil Rights Law Section. Mr. Dane also served as President of the Toledo Bar Association in 2010-2011.