David Rosen has been selected to receive the prestigious 2026 American Inns of Court Professionalism Award for the Second Circuit. Rosen is a Connecticut lawyer specializing in civil rights and human rights; discrimination and employment law; and wrongful death, personal injury, medical malpractice, and products liability law. He will receive the award at a special awards ceremony in New York City in November.

“Attorney Rosen has dedicated his professional career not only to litigating complex and difficult cases, but also to championing the causes of disadvantaged people in our communities,” writes James I. Glasser of the New Haven, Connecticut, law firm Wiggin and Dana LLP on behalf of the judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut.

Specializing in complex trials and appeals on behalf of both individuals and human rights more generally, Rosen has had a number of notable cases. He defended Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale in his murder trial, for example. He won the first personal injury verdict over $10 million in Connecticut history. And he helped force municipal fire departments, the state’s Department of Corrections, and even a property owners’ association to stop discriminatory conduct. He has also appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States as the court-appointed counsel for children of mothers on welfare.

Rosen is a renowned mentor. He established the Thomas Emerson Fellowship, a program for new lawyers interested in public interest law. He has also taught at Yale Law School and the Yale Child Study Center.

Rosen earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard College in 1965, magna cum laude, then attended the London School of Economics as an Honorary Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He earned his law degree in 1969 from Yale Law School, where he was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal. Before launching his private practice, Rosen was a staff attorney and Reginald Heber Smith Fellow at the New Haven Legal Assistance Association, where he later served on the board. He was also the founding board president of the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center.

He is also active in the broader community. He was an original incorporator of the Natural Resources Defense Council. In addition, he was a founding board president of Equally American, which advocates for the rights of citizens of U.S. territories, and a board member of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.

The American Inns of Court, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, inspires the legal community to advance the rule of law by achieving the highest level of professionalism through example, education, and mentoring. The organization’s membership includes nearly 30,000 federal, state, and local judges; lawyers; law professors; and law students in 350 chapters nationwide. More information is available at www.innsofcourt.org.

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