Edward V Sparer

Edward V. Sparer (March 21, 1928 – June 21, 1983) was a prominent attorney known as the "father of welfare law." He founded organizations now known as Mobilization for Justice and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, and was instrumental in the landmark Supreme Court case *Goldberg v. Kelly*. Born in New York City to Marcus Sparer and Ada Cohen, he attended Benjamin Franklin High School and the City College of New York. In 1947, he organized textile workers for Henry A. Wallace and later led strikes against antisemitic and racist faculty at his college. Disillusioned, he joined the American Communist Party with his wife Tanya Schecter before serving in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1953. After resigning from the Communist Party in 1956, Sparer attended Brooklyn Law School, graduating top of his class and editing the *Brooklyn Law Review*. He became a lawyer for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and later worked with Columbia Law School professor Monrad Paulsen on juvenile court research. This led him to Mobilization for Youth (MFY), where he directed MFY Legal Services, focusing on impact litigation to address poverty's root causes. In 1965, he founded the Center on Social Welfare Policy and Law, which became central to New York City’s welfare rights movement. Sparer argued several landmark Supreme Court cases, including *King v. Smith*, *Shapiro v. Thompson*, and *Goldberg v. Kelly*. He later taught at Yale Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he founded the Health ...