Edward V. Sparer

Edward V. Sparer (March 21, 1928 – June 21, 1983) was an attorney known as the "father of welfare law." He was a prominent legal scholar, founded the organizations now known as Mobilization for Justice and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, and was the strategist behind the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Goldberg v. Kelly.

Early life and education Sparer was born in New York City to Marcus Sparer, a retail merchant, and Ada Cohen. He graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in New York City and enrolled at the City College of New York. Sparer then enrolled at Brooklyn Law School as it was the only law school in New York City that would accept him without an undergraduate degree. He graduated at the top of his class and was editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn Law Review.

Career Despite renouncing the Communist Party he needed a letter of recommendation from anti-communist labor leader David Dubinsky to gain his law license. Upon graduating from law school in 1959, he worked as a lawyer for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. Sparer, instead of following the Vera Foundation's recommendation, pushed the organization to focus on impact litigation to change the institutions that created and sustained poverty. Sparer started the Center as the great need of individual clients' demands in neighborhood offices left little time to organize the strategic litigation. Sparer viewed the source of poverty as not from a lack of skills or education but from a lack of power. These victories included King v. Smith, Shapiro v. Thompson, and Goldberg v. Kelly.

Sparer transitioned to academia where he taught at Yale Law School from 1967 to 1969 and at the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1969 until his death.

Death Sparer died on June 21, 1983, in Woodstock, New York. He was survived by his wife Tanya and their three children Ellen, Michael, and Carol.

In 1985, Brooklyn Law School established the Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship Program for law students to prepare for careers in social justice.

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