Alys Cohen is a senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center’s Washington office, where she leads NCLC’s federal housing advocacy before Congress and the regulatory agencies. She has been active in areas including the development of the federal CARES Act on COVID relief, the Homeowner Assistance Fund and HAMP mortgage assistance programs, FHA lending and loss mitigation, Dodd-Frank legislation and regulations, federal mortgage servicing regulation, predatory mortgage origination, manufactured housing, and civil rights issues including market access for borrowers with limited English proficiency. She also coordinates NCLC’s work on energy efficiency housing finance and disaster response.
Alys regularly partners with consumer, legal services, community, energy efficiency, labor, and civil rights organizations, as well as with members of industry. She has trained and consulted with attorneys, organizers, mediators, state advocates, and housing counselors nationwide on homeownership policy matters. Prior to joining NCLC, Alys served as an attorney in the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, Division of Financial Practices, where she focused on predatory mortgage lending and discrimination matters. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she served as an Associate Editor of the Law Review and as an advocate in the Civil Practice Clinic and the Guild Food Stamp Clinic. She is a member of Fannie Mae’s Affordable Housing Advisory Council and the Mortgage Bankers Association Consumer Affairs Advisory Council.
She is co-author of NCLC's Truth in Lending, Consumer Credit Regulation, Credit Discrimination, and Mortgage Lending.