Lynn Weissberg receives an honor from the Massachusetts Chapter for the National Lawyers Guild

By: Alexis Farmer

Lynn Weissberg

On May 17, 2019 the National Lawyers Guild – Massachusetts Chapter (NLG) celebrated its fifty year anniversary at St. Paul African Methodist Life Center in Cambridge. The NLG celebrated its achievements in supporting social movements over the years, from defending anti-war demonstrators against criminal charges in the late 1960s to representing labor unions, prison activists, tenants with substandard housing conditions, and tenants in eviction proceedings more recently. During the celebration, the organization honored long-time activist and former clinical instructor at Harvard Law School Lynn Weissberg.

Lynn Weissberg has been a fierce advocate for social justice throughout her forty-year legal career. At Weissberg & Garin LLP, Weissberg vigorously fought on behalf of her clients in a wide variety of employment cases, representing academics and professionals, low-wage workers, and women facing discrimination in non-traditional jobs such as firefighters and heavy machine operators. She is a founding member of the Massachusetts Employment Lawyers Association and was an Executive Committee member and committee chair until her retirement.

Weissberg has often been politically active since her college days. While at Brandeis University, she worked on Al Lowenstein’s congressional campaign and after graduating cum laude in 1969, she worked for former New York City Mayor John Lindsay. Believing teaching was a way to promote social change, she received her Masters of Arts in Teaching from Harvard in 1972 and taught for five years at the George Bancroft School, an alternative public school in Boston’s South End. After graduating cum laude from Boston College Law School in 1979, Weissberg worked as a staff attorney at the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, representing people who had been discriminated against in employment and housing.

For over 35 years at the Tenant Advocacy Project, Weissberg supervised law students who represent public housing tenants in eviction cases and Section 8 tenants in subsidy termination cases. Through her work at TAP, hundreds of tenants were able to keep their homes. Many law students gained practical experience and a wonderful mentor and role model under Weissberg’s guidance.

Congratulations to Lynn Weissberg on a well-deserved honor. We are profoundly grateful for all of your years of service supervising and mentoring students, and advancing access to affordable housing for people in Greater Boston.

Lynn joins a list of other Harvard Law School clinicians honored by the National Lawyers Guild Massachusetts Chapter, including Deborah Anker, David Grossman, Nancy Kelly, John Willshire-Carrera, and John Salsberg.