Rocky Anderson

Ross Carl "Rocky" Anderson (born September 9, 1951) is an American attorney, writer, activist, and civil and human rights advocate.

He has described his disagreement with certain doctrines of the LDS Church, particularly the denial of the priesthood to men of black African descent and the denial to Black men and women of the right to engage in religious ceremonies prior to 1978.

Anderson has likewise expressed his disagreement with the LDS Church’s teachings and policies relating to members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Anderson also expresses disagreement with what he describes as the LDS teaching of personal moral abdication through obedience to people in positions of authority, arguing that it violates the principle of personal conscience and individual moral development and accountability.

Amidst a wide variety of courses, Anderson studied ethics, political philosophy, and religious philosophy at the University of Utah.

During high school (He attended Ogden High School, built as a WPA project during the Great Depression ), Anderson played lead guitar in a rock and roll band, the Viscounts, and worked at a cabinet and roof truss plant.

He also shingled roofs during his high school and college years.

After graduating from Ogden High School, Anderson attended the University of Utah, during which time he served as Treasurer for the Beta Epsilon chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity and worked at various jobs, including as a truck driver, a roofer, and a gas station manager.

He earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy, graduating magna cum laude.

After reading existentialist literature and several works on ethics, religious philosophy, and political philosophy, he had a "powerful epiphany. We can't escape responsibility, there's no sitting out moral decisions, and whenever we refuse to stand up against wrongdoing we're actually supporting the status quo."

After graduating from the University of Utah, Anderson worked at several jobs.

He built buck fence at a ranch in Wyoming, tended bar in Salt Lake City, drove a cab, waited tables at a restaurant, worked at a methadone clinic, typed freight bills, and worked in construction.

He started graduate school in philosophy at the University of Utah, then traveled to Europe and lived and worked for a few months in Freiburg, Germany before returning to the United States to attend law school.

In 1978, Anderson graduated, with honors, from George Washington University Law School, earning his Juris Doctor.

Upon graduation from law school, Anderson returned to Salt Lake City to practice law.

He participated in several jury trials in federal and state courts and handled appeals before the Utah Court of Appeals, the Utah Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the District of Utah (in an appeal from Bankruptcy Court) and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

Anderson had an extremely diverse legal practice and represented plaintiffs in dozens of major cases, involving a wide variety of issues, including securities fraud, violation of church and state separation, civil rights, professional malpractice, abuse of incarcerated people, child sex abuse, and First and Fourth Amendment violations.

Before he was elected Mayor of Salt Lake City, Anderson practiced law for twenty-one years in Salt Lake City, beginning as an associate with Berman & Giauque and later as a partner in Berman & Anderson; Hansen & Anderson; Anderson & Watkins; and Anderson & Karrenberg.

Prior to serving as Mayor, Anderson practiced law for 21 years in Salt Lake City, during which he was the 1996 Democratic nominee for Congress in Utah’s Second Congressional District.

Following his terms as mayor, Anderson founded and served as the Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights and returned to his legal practice, frequently bringing legal challenges to government programs.

He served two terms as the 33rd Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah from 2000 to 2008.

Anderson also served as the 2012 presidential nominee for his newly created Justice Party, receiving 43,000 votes out of more than 129 million votes cast.

Anderson ran again for Mayor of Salt Lake City in the 2023 mayoral election, but he lost to incumbent Erin Mendenhall 58% to 34%.

Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson was born in Logan, Utah, one of three children of Roy and Grace Anderson.

His parents both worked at Anderson Lumber Company, a local lumber yard founded by Rocky's great-grandfather, a Norwegian immigrant carpenter who had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

Though Anderson does not currently consider himself to be a Mormon, he was raised as one and was a practicing member of the LDS Church in Logan.

After he returned to the practice of law in 2014, he was of counsel with Winder & Counsel, then was a partner at Lewis Hansen, and then practiced at Law Offices of Rocky Anderson until 2021, when he wound down his law practice and volunteered full-time as Executive Director of the Justice Party (later named Allied Justice). He specialized in civil litigation in several areas of law, including antitrust, securities fraud, commercial, product liability, professional malpractice and civil rights.

He often represented individuals suing corporations or government entities, including plaintiffs in the following cases:

Anderson helped to spearhead the reform of Utah's child custody laws.

He worked to institute a program to help those who do not qualify for assistance through Legal Aid or Legal Services, but who are unable to afford to pay in full for legal representation.

Anderson served as Chair of the Litigation Section of the Utah State Bar Association (when the Litigation Section was recognized by the Utah Bar Association as the Section of the Year ), and as president of Anderson and Karrenberg, a Salt Lake City law firm.

When he was practicing law, Anderson was affiliated with several non-profit organizations dedicated to protecting civil rights, providing educational opportunities for economically disadvantaged children, protecting reproductive freedom, improving the penal and criminal justice systems, and strengthening legislative ethics.

He served as president of the boards of the ACLU of Utah, Guadalupe Schools, and Citizens for Penal Reform, which he founded.

He served as a board member of several other community-based non-profit organizations, including Planned Parenthood Association of Utah (for whom he also performed pro bono legal services, including a successful lawsuit to obtain an occupancy certificate for a new clinic, which had been denied because of community opposition to a family planning clinic) and Utah Common Cause.

On behalf of Common Cause, Anderson lobbied for stronger legislation pertaining to ethical conduct by elected officials, as well as for campaign finance reform.

While he was practicing law, Anderson opposed the Reagan Administration's efforts to overthrow the government in Nicaragua and some of the Administration's other policies relating to Latin America.

He spoke publicly and debated regarding the U.S.’s illegal intervention in Nicaragua and organized two trips to Nicaragua for dozens of Utahns so they could see, and report back to the public, what was actually happening in the country.

He also twice debated the commander-in-chief of the Contras, Adolfo Calero.

Moved by the suffering of the friends and family members of several women who had been murdered in the Salt Lake City area, but whose killings Salt Lake City police detectives had failed to solve, Anderson worked pro bono for many months, reviewing documents and locating and interviewing witnesses.

His work, together with the efforts of others, led to the eventual grand jury indictment and conviction of a man for one of the murders.