David Abraham Grossman

David Abraham Grossman, 57, Director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau on Sunday, July 12, 2015. Beloved husband of Stacy, doting father of Lev and Shayna, loyal brother to Rachel, devoted nephew to Helen Kaplan, admired son in law of Leonard and Madeline Soave, respected brother in law of Dina and James Bouloukos and Joe and Ashley Soave, loving uncle to Mike, Lu, Luca, Eva, Amelia, Nico and Stella, dearest cousin to many cousins, and adored son of the late Harold and Gloria Grossman died peacefully in his home at the age of 57. He succumbed to cancer after a seven year long battle.

David, like his musical hero Bruce Springsteen, was born and bred in New Jersey. However, for his adult life David called Boston his home. David graduated from Harvard University Summa Cum Laude in 1980, received a Master’s Degree in Eastern Religions from the Divinity School at Harvard in 1982 and earned his JD at Harvard Law School (HLS) in 1985. As a law student, David enrolled in the Legal Services Center or LSC established by Gary Bellow and Jeanne Charn Bellow. The aim of the Center then and now is grandiose -- to promote social justice by providing free legal counsel to those in need while simultaneously providing hands on training to green law students. It was here that David found his professional calling and a life long friend, mentor and role model in Gary Bellow. David said about Bellow, “Gary was one of the few people about whom it can accurately be said that he devoted his life to performing mitzvot, or good deeds, to trying to fix a broken world, a concept known in Jewish thought as tikkun olam. But what was even more remarkable about Gary than his own mitzvot was his ability to both inspire and enable others to perform mitzvot of their own, to carry out the work of tikkun olam. Gary was the only one who really inspired me. He was the only professor I knew who was not only thinking about and analyzing how to do the right thing, but was actually spending his life doing it. For that reason, he became my mentor and, in a sense, my hero -- someone whom I sought to model my life after.”

In 1995, after a short stint working for the law firm, Kramer Levin in NYC and a few years at Community Lawyers in Jamaica Plain, MA, David rejoined LSC as a clinical instructor in the housing unit and then for eleven years as the Managing Attorney of the Housing Unit. Among the highlights of David’s time at LSC was his role in reviving the partnership between LSC and City Life/Vida Urbana -- a community organization with a focus on tenant’s rights. Together with Steve Meacham - Coordinating Director at City Life/Vida Urbana -- David developed a combined lawyering/organizing approach to gentrification-driven rent increases that resulted in numerous collective bargaining agreements with developers/landlords guaranteeing long-term stability and affordability for buildings full of tenants who had been threatened with displacement. David was also involved in initiating, developing, and staffing a “lawyer-for-the-day” program in Boston Housing Court that has both provided assistance each week to scores of otherwise unrepresented tenants facing eviction and given numerous law students unparalleled educational experience in staffing the law equivalent of an emergency room.

In 2006, David was tapped by then Dean Elena Kagen to be the new Director of the Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) at HLS. Like, LSC, HLAB provides free legal counsel to indigent clients while simultaneously providing hands on training to HLS students. At HLAB David continued to work collaboratively with City Life/Vida Urbana to broaden the scope of HLAB’s role so that it not only provides free legal counsel to those in need, but also enacts real social change to benefit the community at large. In 2007 enormous waves of foreclosure devastated neighborhoods throughout the country and in Boston. Under David’s leadership, HLAB along with City Life/Vida Urbana, adapted their anti-gentrification model into a fierce anti-foreclosure movement.

The anti-foreclosure movement -- which now encompasses HLAB, CityLife/Vida Urbana, LSC and many other organizations -- works with homeowners and tenants to thwart the efforts of lenders to displace families after foreclosure. David and HLAB students played a key role in this mobilizing effort, canvassing foreclosed properties on a weekly basis, conducting weekly clinics in which they educate occupants about their rights, and deploying a legal “shield” for all of the movement’s members by vigorously defending post-foreclosure evictions through a variety of creative and successful approaches. (The “shield’s work is complemented by that of the “sword”: rallies, protests, and other demonstrations, including acts of civil disobedience, coordinated by City Life/Vida Urbana organizers as a means of calling public attention to the problem of post-foreclosure displacement.) Indeed, the movement that David helped to initiate has become so effective in Boston that it has inspired other activists in cities throughout the country to do the same. And, these successes have been well documented by PBS, the NY Times, The Nation, local media and even the subject of a documentary produced by by French Television. Moreover, David helped to secure generous funding from the Oak Foundation to help finance these efforts for years to come.

Although David’s life was prematurely ended, he left an indelible mark and made a positive, impactful difference in the lives of many. At LSC and HLAB he tirelessly worked to provide equity and fairness to the poorest and most vulnerable members of our community. He represented hundreds of tenants against slum landlords and hundreds of homeowners against unconscionable bank foreclosures. He helped draft and get passed fairer laws to protect people from being thrown out of their homes in Massachusetts, and he protested and marched in the streets -- often with his son Lev, his daughter Shayna and his wife Stacy -- to raise awareness of the many injustices working class families had to face. David was a charismatic and effective mentor to his law students and colleagues helping to advance their skill set so that they too could be social justice warriors. It cannot be denied that David’s efforts have done much to heal this broken world. Services will take place at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward St., Newton, on Tuesday at 11:30AM. Burial in Or Emet Cemetery, 776 Baker St., West Roxbury.

If you wish to pay tribute to David’s memory, you may do so by making a contribution to CityLife/Vida Urbana 284 Amory Street, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 or The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, 23 Everett Street #1, Cambridge, MA 02138.