News

Professor Rubinowitz Honored with Public Service Award

July 23, 2013

Professor Len Rubinowitz received the 2013 Leonard Jay Schrager Award of Excellence for his contributions to public service at the Chicago Bar Foundation’s annual Pro Bono and Public Service Awards Luncheon. The Chicago Bar Foundation is the charitable arm of the Chicago Bar Association.

A member of the Northwestern Law faculty for almost 40 years, Rubinowitz teaches law as it pertains to civil rights, urban housing and community development, public interest and social change. He has received a number of student-voted awards for his excellence in teaching throughout his tenure.

Rubinowitz is widely recognized throughout the Northwestern Law community for his commitment to supporting students interested in public interest law by creating and supporting specialized programs and courses at Northwestern. In 2001 Northwestern’s Student Funded Public Interest Fellowship (SFPIF) program renamed its grant program “Len Rubinowitz Public Service Fellowships” in his honor. These fellowships help fund summer public interest employment for law students through a combination of money raised during the year, a Law School contribution, and Federal Work Study grants.

“Len’s commitment to public service and pro bono work has long been the stuff of legend at Northwestern Law,” said Dean Dan Rodriguez. “I’m delighted with the Chicago Bar Foundation’s recognition of his many contributions to our city and our profession.”

Rubinowitz’s research focuses on race both historically and currently. Through his research, he collaborates with both lawyers and activists who focus on racial discrimination.  His books include Low-Income Housing: Suburban Strategies and Crossing the Class and Color Lines: From Public Housing to White Suburbia (with Jim Rosenbaum), which documented and evaluated the impact of the Gautreaux public housing desegregation program.

Before joining the faculty at Northwestern, Rubinowitz served as legal advisor and special assistant at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Leonard Jay Schrager Award of Excellence was established to recognize exemplary attorneys in academia who have made significant and lasting contributions to improving access to justice for the less fortunate. The award is endowed by the law firm of Reed Smith LLP and its partners, which allows the recipient of the award to designate a special Chicago Bar Foundation grant to the law school clinic or legal aid program of his or her choice. Rubinowitz selected Northwestern Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic as the recipient of this grant.

This is the second year in a row that a Northwestern Law professor was honored with this award. Cindy Wilson (JD ’86), clinical associate professor of law and director of the Bluhm Legal Clinic’s Center for Externships, was the 2012 recipient.