Pursuing Justice Podcast Episode 45: Laws restricting the ability to vote, such as unnecessarily strict voter ID requirements, disproportionately impact voters of color. Hear a conversation with Ezra Rosenberg and Ryan Haygood about how pro bono advocacy plays a crucial role in the ongoing fight to protect voters’ rights and fulfill the American vision of ballot access for all eligible voters.
This podcast provides a behind-the-scenes exploration of pro bono and public interest legal work. These heartening stories are told from both clients’ and lawyers’ perspectives to showcase intimate portraits of lawyers helping those with limited access to justice.
Please note: CLE is not offered for listening to this podcast, and the views and opinions expressed within represent those of the speakers and not necessarily those of PLI.
FEATURED IN THIS EPISODE
Ryan P. Haygood
Ryan P. Haygood is a nationally respected civil rights lawyer.
As President & CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, Ryan leads a team of advocates who harness community engagement, research, writing, public education, policy, and litigation to build reparative systems that create wealth, justice, and power for Black, Brown, and other people of color.
Under Ryan’s leadership, the Institute’s advocacy has become a model for states as places to build community power from the ground up.
While Jim Crow-like voter suppression has swept across America in recent years, Ryan and his team successfully championed the restoration of the vote to 83,000 people on probation and parole, a right denied since 1844; the establishment of online voter registration and early voting; and the end to prison-based gerrymandering. Ryan also led the Institute’s litigation efforts to defeat the Trump campaign’s challenge to New Jersey’s voting accommodations during the COVID pandemic and to ensure that voters’ ballots would not be rejected for signature mismatch reasons.
Under Ryan’s leadership, the Institute has also become a leader on New Jersey’s racial wealth gap, publishing original racial wealth data and championing policies to close the state’s vast wealth disparities, including the $15 minimum wage. Ryan oversees the Institute’s advocacy to expand homeownership opportunities; establish fair appraisal policies; and cancel student loan debt — as well as the Institute’s first-of-its-kind Say the Word: Reparations campaign for a state reparations task force.
Ryan has also led the Institute to the forefront of creating solutions to reduce the footprint of law enforcement and help keep communities safe.
Following Darnella Frazier’s courageous recording of George Floyd’s murder, the Institute championed the call for a statewide First Amendment policy to protect the right to record police conduct without intimidation, a policy subsequently established by the Attorney General. The Institute’s advocacy also led to the historic closure announcement for two of New Jersey’s youth prisons, and an $8.4 million investment in youth restorative justice hubs in communities most impacted by youth incarceration.
Ryan has also spearheaded the Institute’s membership on the Independent Monitoring Team overseeing the Newark Police Division’s Consent Decree with the Department of Justice. In that role, the Institute centered community engagement in the development of 16 new policies designed to bring about the transformation in policing that Newark residents have urged since the 1967 Newark Rebellion. The Institute and partners also championed the passage of an independent prosecutor bill to address police misconduct.
Prior to leading the Institute, Ryan served as Deputy Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), where he worked for more than a decade and litigated some of the most important civil rights cases of our time. In two of those cases, he defended a core provision of the Voting Rights Act before the United States Supreme Court. He also led LDF’s successful challenge to Texas’ racially discriminatory photo ID law, leading to the first ruling of its kind when a federal district court struck down Texas’ photo ID law as intentionally racially discriminatory, a violation of the Voting Rights Act, and an unconstitutional poll tax.
Ryan speaks and writes regularly on issues concerning race, law, social justice, democracy, and power. Ryan received his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law and B.A. in American History and Political Science cum laude from Colorado College, where he was nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship and earned academic and athletic All-American and hall of fame honors as a football player. Ryan is a Trustee and Vice-Chair of the Board of Colorado College and a member of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
Ezra Rosenberg
As Co-Director of the Lawyers’ Committee’s Voting Rights Project, Ezra oversees all voting rights litigation, a robust portfolio of over 130 cases in which the Lawyers’ Committee has participated over the last nine years. Ezra has tried several of these cases, most recently the successful challenge to the Trump administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. He is currently litigating challenges to Georgia’s and Texas’ redistricting plans and those same states’ laws altering certain voting requirements enacted in 2021.
Ezra joined the Lawyers’ Committee in November 2014, continuing a 40-year career in the public and private sectors, and was named Co-Director in July 2015. Prior to joining the Lawyers’ Committee staff, Ezra was a partner at Dechert LLP, where he served several terms on the firm’s Policy Committee and as a Deputy Chair of the firm and co-chair of Dechert’s Product Liability and Mass Torts Group. Ezra was consistently ranked among the top litigators both in New Jersey and nationwide by numerous publications, including Chambers, The Legal 500 United States, Benchmark Litigation, and in 2014 was named as one of the top 500 lawyers in the nation by Lawdragon.
At Dechert, Ezra was actively involved in pro bono representations. He was co-lead trial counsel and lead coordinating counsel in both the Section 2 and Section 5 cases challenging Texas’ photo ID voting law, and served as co-lead trial counsel in a school desegregation case tried in Pitt County, North Carolina in 2013. In 2014, Ezra successfully argued an appeal on behalf of the NJ-ACLU before the New Jersey Supreme Court, helping to persuade that court to set stringent standards for the admissibility of a defendant’s rap lyrics in a criminal trial. In 2014, Ezra was named to the National Law Journal’s “Pro Bono Hot List” for his role in significant public interest cases of national importance.
Ezra began his career with the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate, focusing on “special project” criminal appeals, arguing several times before the New Jersey Supreme Court, including a landmark case that set the standard for judicial review of prosecutorial denials of pretrial intervention. He joined the Lands & Natural Resources Division of the United States Department of Justice where, from 1979 to 1982, he handled a variety of cases relating to the nation’s lands.
Ezra graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, B.A., cum laude, in 1971 and from New York University School of Law, J.D., 1974, cum laude, where he received the Founders Day Award and was admitted to the Order of the Coif. He is a past President of the Mercer County, New Jersey, Bar Association, and has received numerous awards during his career, including the Department of Justice Award for Meritorious Service in 1982, the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism “Professional Lawyer of the Year Award” in 1997, the American Jewish Congress’ “Learned Hand Award” in 2011, the ACLU of New Jersey’s “Legal Leadership Award” in 2015, and a Joint Resolution of the New Jersey Legislature in 2015, honoring his pro bono service.
