New Lawyers
Jack Berman Award Recipient – Rose Carmen Goldberg
Rose Carmen Goldberg is our 2019 recipient of the Jack Berman Award. The award will be conferred to her at the Annual Meeting on Thursday, October 10th. We welcome all of you to register and join us for the event.
The California Young Lawyers Association (CYLA) annually confers the Jack Berman Award of Achievement. This award recognizes a new or young California lawyer within their first eight years of practice for distinguished service to the public, the judiciary, or the legal profession.
More about Rose Carmen Goldberg
Rose Carmen Goldberg founded a Medical-Legal Partnership for homeless and low-income veterans at the Oakland Vet Center. The partnership integrates legal services and mental health treatment. It is the first legal partnership at a Department of Veterans Affairs Vet Center in the country. The partnership serves veterans who were kicked out of the military with an other-than-honorable discharge consequent to combat PTSD or sexual assault. Rose launched the partnership as a Skadden Fellow and continued to grow it as a Supervising Staff Attorney at Swords to Plowshares, a veterans rights organization in San Francisco.
Currently Rose now works to protect the consumer rights of service members and veterans as a Deputy Attorney General in the Office of the California Attorney General. Rose is also a Lecturer at Berkeley Law School, where she is teaching a course on how lawyers and doctors can collaborate to better serve vulnerable populations. She is the Vice Chair of the California Lawyers Association Litigation Section’s Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. Rose has written on veterans issues in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Slate, and Harvard Law & Policy Review.
Rose clerked for the Honorable Theodore A. McKee, Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Her work background includes several years of health policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she was nominated to serve on the Health Reform Evaluation Committee. She also worked for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and at the White House on Native American affairs.
Rose has a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she advocated for reform of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ evidentiary standards for military sexual trauma claims as a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic. Prior to law school, Rose graduated from Columbia University with a Masters in Public Policy and Administration. She received her B.A. from St. John’s College’s “great books” program in New Mexico.
More about the Award
CYLA established this prestigious award in 1992 in memory of Jack Berman. Mr. Berman was a young attorney who performed outstanding service to both the public and profession before he tragically died in a shooting in San Francisco. The Award honors his dedicated service to issues of concern to the profession, especially to its young lawyers.
The criteria the CYLA board looks for in conferring for the award among any active California attorney who is in their first 8 years of practice is eligible, are: projects or services to the public, the judiciary, and/or the legal profession that the young attorney has taken part or spearheaded. The projects or services may—but need not be—pro bono. The award is intended to recognize a new or young lawyer for his or her individual achievements.
Past recipients of the award, including biographies, can be seen here.