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By JERRY LYNOTT; Times Leader Staff Writer
Sunday, May 12, 1996 Page: 1A
WILKES-BARRE — After Monday, when he pads up the eight stone steps and
passes through the front doors into the lobby, Senior U.S. Circuit Judge Max
Rosenn will be inside his courthouse.
It’s a rare occurrence when Congress and the president of the United States
agree to name a federal building for someone who is living.
But Rosenn, 86, is that rare person deserving such a tribute, say those who
know the Kingston resident.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has set a special session for Monday
to dedicate the building for Rosenn, who has been on the appeals bench since
his appointment in October 1970 by President Nixon.
Active and senior members of the federal court, family, friends, former law
clerks of the judge, admirers and a few others with invitations will squeeze
into the larger of the two small courtrooms on the second floor of the
building on South Main and West South streets in downtown Wilkes-Barre.
While they are honoring the judge for his service, his intellect and his
fairness, they also will be honoring the man.
Initial appointment lives in memory
Not much will change after Monday’s ceremony. There will be a plaque
affixed to the building. But the judge’s elevator ride upstairs won’t be any
quicker. His walk down the hallway won’t be any shorter. And the name on the
door to his office door won’t be any bigger.
“I have no proprietary airs on it,” said Rosenn, breaking a smile during an
interview last week.
Pausing to choose his words, he thanked those who have worked hard for the
dedication. “I think it’s a very nice development and acknowledgement and I
appreciate it very much.”
The recognition is significant but not the zenith of his public life.
“Probably the high point of my career is my appointment to the bench,” said
the Wyoming Valley native.
Legal work broadened into public service
That’s Max Rosenn. “Modest, affable, courteous,” in a snapshot description
provided by attorney Joseph Savitz, his close friend for more than 40 years.
The 72-year-old Savitz, a senior member of Rosenn Jenkins & Greenwald, the
firm the judge started with his brother, Harold Rosenn, recalled meeting his
mentor.
Fresh out of law school and looking for a lawyer to serve a clerkship with
in 1948, Savitz asked his brother and uncle for advice. “They said there’s
only one lawyer to go to, Max Rosenn,” Savitz said.
Rosenn, a 1932 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, had
his own general practice at the time. He and Savitz developed a
teacher-student relationship that went beyond the law.
“He also stressed the importance of giving something back to the
community,” Savitz said.
Rosenn’s life story has been one of giving, not only to his community, but
to his state and country as well. He continues to earn approximately $142,000
a year as a senior member of the court. But friends say he repays that many
times over by the example he sets as judge, scholar and gentleman.
“In a way, Judge Rosenn epitomizes the concept of `The Valley with a
Heart,’ ” said U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke. “I’m just proud that he
represents the Wyoming Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania to the rest of the
nation.”
Former Gov. William W. Scranton said, “Not only has he manifested an
extraordinary career in the judiciary and as a lawyer, but also he has
constantly served people in many other capacities.
“This is an extraordinary man and a wonderful human being.”
Rosenn, born Feb. 4, 1910, in Plains Township, attended local schools and
graduated from Cornell University before going to law school. Almost 10 years
into his legal career, he served in the Luzerne County District Attorney’s
Office before joining the U.S. Army and serving in the South Pacific.
He returned home to practice law and began the firm that still bears his
name.
He attracted the attention of state government leaders who sought his
counsel on a host of agencies and committees. He accepted the invitations of
two governors, Scranton and Raymond P. Shafer, to serve as secretary of public
welfare.
He welcomed the opportunity to sit on the second highest court in the
country. And he shouldered the lead on the Flood Recovery Task Force after
Tropical Storm Agnes devastated the Wyoming Valley in 1972.
Role as mentor went beyond family
Just as Rosenn nurtured a young Savitz almost 50 years ago, the judge and
his late wife, Tillie, raised two sons, Daniel, a doctor in Boston, and Keith,
a law professor at the University of Miami. The couple also cared for the
brood of law clerks that came and went year after year.
“When I look back on my career, Max Rosenn is one of the very few people
who stands out as a role model on how you conduct yourself,” said Richard
Gelfond, a Northwestern University Law School graduate who clerked for Rosenn
almost 17 years ago. “As a 23-year-old, you really had the opportunity to get
close to and experience the inner workings of a first-class mind and
first-class intellect, Gelfond said.
Today, the 40-year-old Gelfond is chief executive officer of IMAX in New
York City.
“Being in Wilkes-Barre added to the experience,” Gelfond said. “Because it
was a small town, you had a sense of family from the judge and Mrs. Rosenn. In
a larger city it would have been harder to forge that closeness.”
The judge’s wife “was an integral part of the experience,” Gelfond said.
“She brought a certain warmth, an unpretentiousness, a real loving side that
complimented him.”
Community searches for ways to say thanks
As a way of saying thanks and recognizing Rosenn’s 10th anniversary on the
bench in 1980, Gelfond and other clerks decided to honor him by setting a
lecture series at Wilkes University.
With the help of the school, the Rosenn Jenkins & Greenwald firm, family
and friends of the judge, the Max Rosenn Lecture Series in Law and Humanities
continues. During its 15 years, the series has featured former NBC News
correspondent Edwin Newman, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul
Stevens, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin and Chief Judge
Emeritus of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.
Wilkes University President Christopher Breiseth paid high tribute to the
series, calling it the premiere event of the school year. Breiseth said he
treasures the friendship and input of the judge who serves as trustee emeritus
at the school.
“When I get a really complex problem at the university, one of the people I
always think of going to is Judge Rosenn,” Breiseth said. “He’s so perceptive.
He’s not someone who gets flustered by a problem.”
As a sitting judge, “there’s virtually nothing in the human condition he
doesn’t see,” Breiseth added.
The national recognition is “particularly fitting,” Breiseth said.
For years the people of the valley have known what an asset the judge is,
Breiseth said. “It’s one of those happy coincidences where the prophet is with
honor in his home town.”
Word of Rosenn’s value has spread throughout the federal court system, too.
`I’ve always felt he had a true appreciation of what confronts trial
judges. He wasn’t a second-guesser,” said Senior U.S. Judge William Nealon.
Unlike Rosenn who hears arguments on appeals of cases from lower courts,
Nealon presides over both civil and criminal cases in Scranton.
The two men might soon share the uncommon distinction of having buildings
dedicated for them.
U.S. Rep. Joseph M. McDade, R-Scranton, has introduced legislation to have
the federal courthouse in Scranton named after the 73-year-old Nealon.
Last year, Kanjorski introduced similar legislation in the House of
Representatives for Rosenn. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Philadelphia, aided the
effort and the two men succeeded in getting the bill passed and prepared for
signature by President Clinton.
“Judge Rosenn is a model. He’s a model of what the courts ought to be,”
Specter said.
Even with a plug like that, the veteran lawmaker acknowledged the building
dedication was a hard sell.
“Frankly it takes a lot of push to get it through,” Specter said. “You’re
fighting a bias against the living.”
TIMES LEADER/CLARK VAN ORDEN
The federal building on South Main and West South streets in downtown
Wilkes-Barre will be known as the Max Rosenn United States Courthouse. Rosenn,
86, of Kingston has been on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court for more than 25 years.