John
Rosenberg
Nominated by Angeleigh Dorsey
"John Rosenberg, a Holocaust survivor and former trial section chief with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the 1960s, forever changed the lives of thousands of people in the heart of Appalachian coal country when he and his wife Jean moved to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, in 1970 to check out a fledging organization with roots in Kentucky and West Virginia to address systemic issues of poverty and assist low income people with civil legal needs. Under John’s leadership as executive director, that organization—the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund, also known as AppalReD Legal Aid—grew and expanded, from dealing with environmental and safety issues related to coal mining to becoming a holistic legal aid provider, broadly meeting the legal needs in Eastern Kentucky.
John’s career has shaped and reflected the evolution of civil legal services since the creation of the Legal Services Corporation. He started by showing the impact that a small group of fearless and dedicated attorneys could have in fighting poverty by using the law to level the playing field against powerful industrial interests. AppalReD led the way in showing that local citizens groups could successfully oppose mine permits. Although it took decades, eventually these sorts of efforts resulted in a popular amendment to Kentucky’s constitution that gave more rights to Kentuckians, often low income, who owned the surface rights to land, but not the mineral rights to the coal underneath. As federal legal services funding became more restricted, John was a leader in adapting to the restrictions while also seeking other, unrestricted sources of funding. He contributed as a legal services representative on the National Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account (IOLTA) Clearinghouse, which helped spread IOLTA programs around the country. He has also been involved in founding other public interest law organizations such as the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, which serves as a statewide, unrestricted legal services provider, and the Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center, which continues to advocate for environmental justice.
In his thirty-year career at AppalReD, John trained and mentored hundreds of law students and lawyers, many of whom became exceptional lawyers and judges and leaders in the access-to-justice movement. Even after retiring from AppalReD in 2002, John has worked just as hard over the past two decades with supporting legal services by advocating for increased funding and volunteering with efforts through organizations such as the American Bar Association’s Pro Bono Committee."
