Patrice Ficklin

Fair Lending Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)

Patrice Alexander Ficklin has served as Fair Lending Director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau since May 2011. As Fair Lending Director, Ms. Ficklin leads the CFPB’s efforts to ensure fair, equitable and nondiscriminatory access to credit for consumers and communities. Her responsibilities include oversight and enforcement of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), the federal law that prohibits discrimination in any aspect of a credit transaction, as it pertains to the activities of the bank and nonbank institutions under the CFPB’s jurisdiction.

Prior to her appointment, Ms. Ficklin was Counsel to the civil rights law firm of Relman, Dane & Colfax. There she supported the work of civil rights groups and also helped mortgage lenders and servicers ensure their compliance with the Fair Housing Act and ECOA. Prior to joining the Relman firm, Ms. Ficklin served as Associate General Counsel on Fannie Mae’s fair lending team, where she advised clients in the single family business and credit policy divisions on predatory lending, fair lending and fair housing issues, and worked to extend mortgage credit to thin- and no-file borrowers.

During her tenure at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale) Ms. Ficklin practiced in the corporate transactions and employment law groups, and co-authored a Supreme Court amici brief on behalf of several prominent civil rights organizations in Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, a major affirmative action case. Finally, she served as an arbitrator of ECOA claims made by Black farmers in Pigford v. Glickman, a class action lawsuit against the US Department of Agriculture. As a Pigford arbitrator, she presided over mini-trials and ruled on several farmers’ claims of discrimination in the Department’s lending programs, awarding monetary damages.

Ms. Ficklin is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Harvard Law School.