Deena Zakim

Deena Zakim co-teaches the Housing Clinic and runs the Housing Medical Legal Partnership (MLP). Through the MLP, students collaborate with the social care team at Mass General Brigham to obtain the best possible housing and health outcomes for patients facing housing instability and learn how to effectively and passionately represent these tenants in their court cases. Deena is a co-convener of the Eastern Housing Court Bench Bar and a repeat faculty member on several disability and housing related MCLE programs.

From 2015 to 2025, Deena was an attorney in the housing unit at Greater Boston Legal Services. There, she specialized in working with tenants who had disabilities and were facing eviction or subsidy termination from public and subsidized housing and she managed the housing unit’s MLP contract with a local hospital. Deena did direct service work as well as systemic advocacy. Her practice included administrative advocacy and representation in the trial and appellate courts. Before GBLS, Deena clerked for the Honorable Justice Gary Katzmann at the Massachusetts Appeals Court.

Deena is the author of Reasonable Accommodation Issues in Housing, Residential and Commercial Landlord Tenant Practice in Massachusetts (MCLE Inc. 4th ed. 2022) and co-author of Housing Rights, Legal Rights of Individuals with Disabilities (MCLE, Inc. 3d ed. 2021). Deena graduated summa cum laude from Suffolk University Law School after graduating Clark University with a B.A. in Sociology (with a minor in Jewish Studies) and a M.A. in Community Development and Planning.