Peter Edelman

Peter Benjamin Edelman (born January 9, 1938) is an American legal scholar.

He is a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, specializing in the fields of poverty, welfare, juvenile justice, and constitutional law.

He worked as an aide for Senator Robert F. Kennedy and in the Clinton Administration, where he resigned to protest Bill Clinton's signing the welfare reform legislation.

Edelman was one of the founders and president of the board of the New Israel Fund.

Edelman grew up in a Jewish family in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of Hyman and Miriam Edelman.

His father worked as a lawyer and his mother worked as a homemaker.

His grandfather Eliezer Edelman was a rabbi in Poland; Eliezer and his wife were shot and killed by the Nazis during World War II.

Edelman received his A.B. in 1958 from Harvard College and LL.B. degree from Harvard Law School.

He served as a law clerk to Judge Henry Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg.

Edelman worked in the United States Department of Justice as special assistant to assistant attorney general John W. Douglas.

Edelman worked as a legislative assistant to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, from 1964 to 1968, accompanying Kennedy to his meeting with labor leader Cesar Chavez.

Edelman also met his wife while touring impoverished areas of Mississippi with Kennedy to prepare for reauthorization of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.

Following Kennedy's assassination, Edelman spent brief periods working as deputy director for Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, issues director for Arthur Goldberg's New York gubernatorial campaign, and vice president of the University of Massachusetts from 1972 to 1975.

Edelman became director of the New York state Division for Youth, in 1975, joined Foley & Lardner as partner in 1979, and served as issues director for Senator Edward Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1980.

In 1981, he helped found Parents United in the District of Columbia to empower parents to advocate for educational quality in DC's public schools.

Edelman has taught at Georgetown since 1982.

Edelman took a leave of absence during Clinton's first term, to serve as counselor to HHS Secretary Donna Shalala and then as Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation.

In 1990, Edelman was elected to the Common Cause National Governing Board.

He currently serves as chair of the seventeen-member Access to Justice Commission for the District of Columbia, a panel studying ways to provide access to civil legal representation for those who cannot afford it.

Edelman is married to Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children's Defense Fund and the first black woman admitted to the bar in Mississippi.

They have three sons: Joshua, Jonah and Ezra.

In late 1994, Clinton considered nominating Edelman to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that had become vacant with the decision by Abner Mikva to retire from the bench on September 19, 1994, to become White House counsel.

However, Clinton feared a difficult confirmation battle, later successfully nominating Merrick Garland to the seat.

In 1995, Clinton mulled nominating Edelman to the federal district court in Washington D.C., but in August 1995, abandoned that possibility as well.

In September 1996, Edelman resigned from the Clinton administration in protest of Clinton signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act.

According to Edelman, the 1996 welfare reform law destroyed the safety net.

Edelman has served as an associate dean of the Georgetown University Law Center, the president of the board of New Israel Fund, from June 2005 to June 2008.

Edelman served on the board of the Center for Community Change, the Public Welfare Foundation, Americans for Peace Now, the Center for Law and Social Policy and the American Constitution Society, among others.