Roslyn Litman

Litman was born Eta Roslyn Margolis in Brooklyn on Sept. 30, 1928, in Brooklyn, to Ukrainian Jewish immigrants Harry and Dorothy Perlow Margolis.[1] She had an older sister, Ruth.[2] Her father was a clothing salesman and her mother a milliner.[1] Litman attended Erasmus Hall High School.[1] After she had graduated high school, the family moved to Western Pennsylvania.[1]

Litman attended the University of Pittsburgh, where she met her husband-to-be, S. David Litman, who was in law school there.[1] She received a bachelor's degree in 1949, started law school, and graduated in 1952 first in her class.[1][3] She joined the ACLU while in law school.[1]

Litman was rejected by major law firms because she was a woman, so she and her husband formed their own firm.[1]

One of Litman's first cases was arguing the right of the American Nazi Party to demonstrate in Pittsburgh.[1][3]

Litman and her husband, fellow lawyer S. David Litman, successfully argued in 1966 judgement in favor of a blackballed former NBA player, Connie Hawkins, on antitrust grounds.[1] The NBA had refused to allow any team to hire Hawkins, who at the time was playing for the Harlem Globetrotters.[1] The league agreed to a $1.3M settlement in 1969 and Hawkins was signed by the Phoenix Suns and eventually was inducted into the Hall of Fame.[1][4]

In 1989, in her first appearance before the U.S. Supreme Court, Litman successfully argued on behalf of the ACLU of Pennsylvania to remove a nativity scene from display in the Allegheny County courthouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[1][3]

Litman and other members of a team of lawyers won a settlement of $415M, a record in 1991, from Continental Can Company, which the team had argued had laid off 3000 workers to avoid pension liabilities.[1]

Litman married S. David Litman; the couple had three children, including Harry Litman and Jessica Litman.[1] She served on the national board of the ACLU for thirty years, including as one of the organization's five National Counsel.[1][3]

Her husband died in 1996.[5] Litman died of pancreatic cancer in Pittsburgh on October 4, 2016.[1] She was 88.[1]

• Wolf, Dave (1972). Foul! the Connie Hawkins Story. Warner Paperback Library. OCLC 635687490.