{"id":4233,"date":"2019-05-24T09:01:30","date_gmt":"2019-05-24T13:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=4233"},"modified":"2019-12-18T13:17:50","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T18:17:50","slug":"real-joy-in-improving-lives-through-labor-law-amy-rosenberger-85","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2019\/05\/24\/real-joy-in-improving-lives-through-labor-law-amy-rosenberger-85\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Real Joy’ in Improving Lives Through Labor Law: Amy Rosenberger ’85"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Amy Rosenberger ’85 in her office in downtown Philadelphia at Willig, Williams and Davidson. She is a past president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Labor and Employment Relations Association and has served on the board of directors of the AFL-CIO Lawyers Coordinating Committee.<\/p><\/div>\n

HER MOTHER\u2019S EXASPERATED<\/strong> \u201cYou ought to be a lawyer!\u201d was ultimately not lost on Amy Rosenberger ’85<\/strong>, who as an eight-year-old was arguing her case for spending a Saturday with a friend.<\/p>\n

But heading off to EMU a decade later, her perceived career options \u2013 social work, nursing, teaching \u2013 didn\u2019t include law. Mennonites, after all, have historically sworn off suing or otherwise turning to the courts for conflict resolution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut it sure is fun,\u201d she said recently.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now practicing labor and employment law in Philadelphia, Rosenberger works with unions to protect people such as health care workers, educators, bus drivers and custodial workers against unfair treatment, and to negotiate for fair wages, benefits and retirement security.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI get a nerdy sort of satisfaction out of crafting a persuasive argument to a court, arbitrator or other decision maker,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the real joy in my work comes from putting my arguments to use as part of a team of people with diverse talents all working together to help improve the lives of ordinary people in concrete ways.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Rosenberger graduated from EMU with a degree in English, minors in sociology and theater arts, and a deeper understanding of \u201cthe wider array of options for my professional role in society,\u201d she said, thanks to a year at the Washington Community Scholars\u2019 Center (WCSC) with \u201cpart professor, part counselor and part mentor\u201d Nelson Good ’68<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

A year after graduating, Rosenberger returned to Washington, and worked for WCSC and as support staff for five attorneys at a faith-based agency working with low-income families. Like her mother long before, her future brother-in-law noted her skills.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s actually the first time in my adult life that anyone said, \u2018Yeah, you should think about going to law school,\u2019\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n

First, though, Rosenberger and a former WCSC housemate \u2013 now-Eastern Mennonite Seminary office coordinator Emily North \u2013 headed to San Francisco, where she found another legal secretarial job at a firm that represented labor unions. The firm opened her eyes to law as \u201ca practical way to do something that can have relatively immediate benefits for ordinary people, and something that I really felt a connection to,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Now nearly a quarter century into practicing law, Rosenberger is continuing to \u201clearn and develop as a lawyer and as a business partner\u201d \u2013 and to have fun.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an eight-year-old, she had had \u201cno idea\u201d what her mother had been talking about \u2013 \u201cbut I certainly do now,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is still thrilling to be able to help right a wrong for an individual employee, or to help ensure fair treatment for a group of workers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HER MOTHER\u2019S EXASPERATED \u201cYou ought to be a lawyer!\u201d was ultimately not lost on Amy Rosenberger ’85, who as an eight-year-old was arguing her case for spending a Saturday with a friend. But heading off to EMU a decade later, her perceived career options \u2013 social work, nursing, teaching \u2013 didn\u2019t include law. Mennonites, after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":4271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,947],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine","category-springsummer-2019","issues-current-issue","issues-spring-summer-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4233"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4376,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4233\/revisions\/4376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}