Max Rosenn

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Max Rosenn (February 4, 1910 - February 7, 2006) was a Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1970 to 2006. Born to a Jewish family in Plains, Pennsylvania, Judge Rosenn graduated from Cornell University in 1929 and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1932.

He was nominated by President Richard Nixon to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on September 3, 1970, to a seat vacated by Judge David Henry Stahl. He was confirmed by the Senate on October 6, 1970. He assumed senior status on January 21, 1981.

Prior to serving on the bench, Judge Rosenn was an Assistant District Attorney in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania from 1941 to 1944, a U.S. Army First Lieutenant from 1944 to 1946 (in the JAG Corps in the Philippines), and the Pennsylvania Secretary of Public Welfare from 1966 to 1967. In 1954, Max Rosenn, Mitchell Jenkins and Henry Greenwald founded the Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania law firm of Rosenn, Jenkins & Greenwald[1], which has grown to become a 40 member regional law firm with offices in Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, Hazleton and Milford, Pennsylvania. In 1972, when Wilkes-Barre and the entire Wyoming Valley (Pennsylvania) area was devastated by a flood, he chaired the Flood Recovery Task Force.

Judge Rosenn was widely respected in his community and by his fellow judges of all judicial temperaments and across the political spectrum. His opinions are more frequently cited than almost any other federal appellate court judge.

During his years on the court, Judge Rosenn had more than seventy law clerks, who became extraordinarily devoted to him. In 1980, to commemorate his tenth anniversary on the bench, they established the annual Max Rosenn lecture at Wilkes College (now Wilkes University) in Wilkes-Barre. Following his death, they formed the Association of Law Clerks of The Honorable Max Rosenn.

The United States Courthouse in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania is named after Judge Rosenn [2], as is the Max Rosenn Memorial Law Library in the Luzerne County (Pennsylvania) Courthouse.

Judge Rosenn was married to Tillie Hershkowitz, who died in 2003.

Judge Rosenn died on February 7, 2006 at the age of 96.