Oneshia Herring

Oneshia Herring is NFHA’s Senior Vice President and Counsel for Consulting and Compliance. She leads the organization’s efforts to provide high-impact consulting and compliance services to financial institutions, housing providers, federal and state government agencies, insurance companies, and other entities. She specializes in helping institutions identify, evaluate, and mitigate fair housing and fair lending risks by using data driven analytics to inform legal reviews, recommendations, strategies, and programs designed to increase homeownership and access to credit for marginalized communities.

Oneshia has extensive experience in fair lending and fair housing, as well as in civil rights enforcement and compliance more broadly. Prior to joining NFHA, Oneshia spent nearly a decade at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) working in the Civil Rights Division as Senior Counsel in the Office of the Assistant Attorney General and Senior Trial Attorney in the Housing and Civil Enforcement Section, where she led initiatives to advance the Division’s priorities and handled several high-profile fair housing and fair lending matters resulting in several million dollars in relief to aggrieved persons. She was also Deputy Director in the Office for Civil Rights, Office of Justice Programs, where she worked to ensure that federal funds are being used to promote equity and are not financing illegal discrimination. Moreover, she is the Immediate Past Chair of the DOJ Association of Black Attorneys (DOJABA).

Before DOJ, Oneshia was Senior Policy Counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), a policy and research institution that works to protect homeownership and family wealth by fighting abusive lending practices toward low-income persons and communities of color. CRL is also an affiliate of the nation’s largest CFDI, Self-Help. Oneshia played a critical role in drafting and negotiating legislative efforts to combat foreclosure at the state level and worked on federal issues surrounding predatory small dollar lending and loss mitigation mortgage issues. Oneshia started her career on Capitol Hill as a Congressional Fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, where she served as Counsel for the U.S. Senate Housing, Banking and Urban Affairs Committee. Additionally, Oneshia worked as Counsel with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Appellate Review Sector and as a Legal Intern in Microsoft’s Legal and Corporate Affairs Division.

A National Bar Association 40 Under 40 Award recipient, Oneshia is involved with several civic organizations including the National Bar Association, Washington Bar Association, National Association of Consumer Advocates, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Pan-Hellenic Council, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. Oneshia is also a member of the North Carolina State Bar and a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law.

Oneshia holds a B.S. from the Florida State University, where she was a Florida Bright Futures Scholar. She also holds an M.A. from the University of Central Florida and a J.D. from the North Carolina Central University School of Law.