Valerie D. Comenencia Ortiz is an attorney at Relman Colfax PLLC, a national civil rights law firm based in Washington, D.C. Her civil rights litigation practice focuses on challenging discrimination in housing, lending, employment, education, and policing.

Valerie has represented non-profit organizations, classes, and individuals on a variety of complex civil rights matters. Her cases include challenges to exclusionary zoning laws in high-opportunity towns, categorical housing bans on justice-involved individuals, and discriminatory lending practices affecting Black and Latino communities.

Prior to her current position, Valerie clerked for Judge Jesus G. Bernal of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. She also spent two years representing employees, consumers, and others in employment discrimination, consumer protection, and antitrust class actions at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein in San Francisco, California.

Valerie graduated from Yale Law School, where she was an Executive Articles Editor for the Yale Journal of International Law, and a member of the Community and Economic Development Clinic and the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. She also received a B.A. in Human Rights and a Master of International Affairs in Economic and Political Development from Columbia University.