The National LGBT Bar Association will honor a late local community leader at its annual conference later this month.
David Rosenblum, 47, helmed Mazzoni Center’s Legal Services from 2011 until his death this past spring from a heart attack. The national group will present an award in his memory at its Lavender Law Conference Awards Brunch, Aug. 22 in New York City.
Rosenblum’s mother and his husband, Stephan Stoeckl, will accept the award.
Before he joined the team at Mazzoni, Rosenblum served as New Jersey’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s Equal Employment Opportunity Officer, and also as the state’s deputy attorney general and a trial attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Rosenblum also spearheaded Lavender Law’s Career Fair.
Bar association executive director D’Arcy Kemnitz said the career fair is “a signature component of the bar’s work to connect LGBT law students with meaningful careers in the legal field. David left behind a legacy of opportunity that is reflected both in his distinguished legal career and in the vibrant, and growing, career fair he created and loved.”
Mazzoni Center executive director Nurit Shein said the award represents the depth and breadth of Rosenblum’s work.
“It is very fitting, as he was one of the founders of the career fair at this annual conference, which remained important to him,” she said. “This award reminds us of the tremendous impact David had on the field of LGBT law and civil rights, and of the incredibly high esteem in which he was held by his professional colleagues. He would be deeply touched at the recognition by those he worked with and admired.”
“I think it is great that he is being recognized, as he was somebody that worked directly for the community,” added Stoeckl. “Mazzoni Center was something he was very proud of. Having that part of his work recognized in this fashion is something he would have been very happy with.”