Ypsilanti resident Jonathan I. Rose, 80, a longtime Washtenaw County attorney and member of the Washtenaw County Bar Association, died Aug. 2 after a long illness.
A celebration of life was held at Casa Dominick’s in Ann Arbor on Aug. 9.
Over six decades, Rose was a crusading Ann Arbor lawyer who championed the poor, powerless, and was politically radical by challenging landlords, bankers, and university administrators.
Rose was born in Detroit on Oct. 17, 1942. His father, Saul Rose, trained as a pharmacist, was then worked as a life insurance salesman in the General Motors headquarters.
After the war, Saul started Grand River Chevrolet in downtown Detroit.
Rose’s mother, Dora Brown Rose, had been one of the few women to earn law degrees in the 1930s. After she got married, she did not practice and devoted her time to raising three children.
Rose received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Michigan in 1965 and a law degree from the University of Detroit in 1969.
As a staff attorney for Wayne County Neighborhood Legal Services starting in 1971, Rose began to fight for low-income families seeking safe, affordable housing. He proposed the creation of a Landlord-Tenant Legal Aid Office; and chaired a committee the Michigan Supreme Court convened to rewrite the jargon-filled legal notices people received in eviction cases into “street talk.” Their proposals helped set off a nationwide movement to reform language used in legal documents.
In 1973, Rose became director of the University of Michigan Office of Washtenaw County Legal Aid; and built a small staff of attorneys and law students. The office defended students who had run-ins with the law for offenses ranging from shoplifting to trespassing while conducting a political protest.
Much of the work was assisting students dealing with the handful of large property owners that controlled much of off-campus housing. Frequent complaints included poor maintenance, security deposits not returned, and discrimination. Rose often used these cases to reform laws to benefit tenants.
Located in the Michigan Union, the office was involved in many political battles. It supported a widespread rent strike in 1975; and challenged a student code of conduct proposed by the university administration that Rose argued would impair the rights of students to espouse radical ideas.
As times became more conservative in the 1980s, Rose established a private practice and was joined by Jonathan Weber, who had volunteered at the student legal services office as a student.
Their firm, Rose & Weber, became an iconoclastic member of the Ann Arbor legal community from the late 1980s through the early 2010s.
For several years in the 1990s, it was Rose, Weber & Pappas when Tinamarie Pappas, a labor lawyer, joined as a partner.
Rose & Weber continued to support political causes, especially the right of free expression. In one notable case, the firm represented Sandra Steingraber, then a U of M student and now a prominent biologist and political activist, arrested at an October 1998 protest against the inauguration of university president James Duderstadt. The firm defended her against charges of assault and battery and successfully sued the city for head injuries Steingraber received at the hands of the security officer.
For many years, Rose organized the Jeremy Rose Memorial Softball Tournament, an annual event to commemorate his brother, an Ann Arbor attorney, who died in a motorcycle accident in 1978. The tournament continues to this day.
Rose & Weber continued practicing until 2017, as Rose’s health began to decline.
Contributions in Rose’s honor may be made to Fair Housing Center of Southeast & Mid Michigan, PO Box 7825, Ann Arbor, MI 48107.
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