One to One with Bill Goodman:
John Rosenberg
aired May 4 and 6, 2007
John M. Rosenberg, long-time director of the Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky, or AppalReD, is Bill Goodman’s guest on this edition of One to One.
AppalReD provides free legal services to people who are involved in civil cases but cannot afford a private attorney. Its lawyers may help a client settle a dispute with a government agency, lender, or landlord; negotiate family courts in a divorce or custody case; or seek justice in the face of discrimination. It has offices in nine cities and serves clients in 37 Appalachian Kentucky counties.
Rosenberg held the director’s position at AppalReD for more than 28 years before retiring in 2001. He now serves as its interim director.
A graduate of Duke University and the University of North Carolina School of Law, Rosenberg began his career in 1962 as a trial attorney with the United States Department of Justice, where he prepared and presented civil cases involving voting and public accommodations in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, then in the western U.S. He later became chief of the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he often worked in the face of hostility to racial equality.
Rosenberg’s leadership of AppalReD brought important legal services to thousands of people and led to path-breaking developments in many aspects of poverty law and other areas of legal services. He established the Mine Safety Project, the Kentucky Migrant Legal Services Project, and Volunteer Lawyers for Appalachian Kentucky.
