Dear NYLS Community Members,
We write with profound sadness to share that retired New York State Appellate Division, First Department Justice and NYLS Trustee Ernst H. Rosenberger ’58 passed away on Sunday, August 30, one day before his 95th birthday. Ernst lived a full life dedicated to public service and was a deeply committed alumnus, adjunct professor, and trustee. He was predeceased by his son, John Brailey Rosenberger, by two months, and is survived by his wife, Dr. Judith Ann Brailey, his daughter, Anne Elizabeth Rosenberger, and his nieces, Karin Kunstler Goldman and Jane Drazek, the daughters of his late sister, Lotte Rosenberger Kunstler.
Ernst was always a supportive member of our Board of Trustees, and we greatly appreciated and relied on his wise and experienced counsel and friendship. He possessed a superior legal mind and believed that a life in the law was the ultimate act of service. At heart, he was a humanitarian. Over the course of his remarkable life, Ernst saw humanity at its worst and at its best. From those experiences, he developed the wisdom, perspective, and tenacity to protect the rights of others and to build fairer and more just systems.
Emigrating to the United States from Hamburg, Germany, and escaping Nazi Germany with his family when he was just four years old in 1935, he attended public schools in Manhattan and graduated from Stuyvesant High School. He served in the U.S. Army for two years, attended the City College of New York, and then attended NYLS, graduating in 1958. During his time as a student, he served as Editor in Chief of the New York Law School Law Review. He also received his LL.M. from the University of Virginia School of Law.
He worked in private practice from 1958 to 1972 in New York City and was a cooperating attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union and The Legal Aid Society. He was a civil rights champion, appearing in and consulting on a number of cases, including as a volunteer lawyer for Freedom Riders arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1961, who challenged segregation by riding segregated buses in the South.
His 31-year judicial career began in 1972, when New York City Mayor John Lindsay appointed him to preside in Criminal Court. Four years later, he was elected to State Supreme Court, and in 1978, New York Governor Hugh Carey appointed him Presiding Justice of the Supreme Court’s Extraordinary Special and Trial Term for corruption investigations of the criminal justice system. New York Governor Mario Cuomo appointed him to the Appellate Division, First Department, in 1985, where he remained until he retired in 2003. In 2004, he joined Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP as Of Counsel.
Ernst was passionate about NYLS, which he credited with setting the foundation for his extraordinary life and career. He began teaching here as an adjunct professor in 1976, served as President of the Alumni Association, and then joined the Board of Trustees, serving for four decades, including as Vice Chair and a longtime member of the Executive Committee and Board Parliamentarian until his death. In recognition of his dedication to NYLS and his decades of service to New York, NYLS presented him with our highest honor, the President’s Medal, at Commencement in 2008 and honored him at the 2013 Gala.
Ernst will be deeply missed by all who knew him, and he will always be remembered. Our entire NYLS community sends our condolences to Judith, Anne, Karin, and Jane. He will be laid to rest today, September 1, at West Stockbridge Cemetery in West Stockbridge, Massachusetts.
Later this fall, we will hold a celebration of Ernst’s life on our campus. His family requests that, instead of flowers, donations be made to NYLS in his name.
John Estes ’95
Chair, NYLS Board of Trustees
Anthony W. Crowell
Dean and President