Lawyer Profile:
Stephen Rosenfeld, a retired partner at Rosenfeld Rafik & Sullivan, is a specialist in health access and health benefits law, including ERISA, health care consumer protection, long-term disability law and several related areas. He has litigated in all federal and state courts with jurisdiction in Massachusetts, including the United States Supreme Court, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the Massachusetts Appeals Court and the Massachusetts Superior Court.
He served in the Executive Branch of Massachusetts Government as chief legal counsel to Governor Michael Dukakis, and as his chief of staff. He also served in the Department of the Attorney General, as chief of the Government Bureau. He has taught law at New York University Law School, Northeastern University School of Law (NUSL), and Boston College Law School.
Mr. Rosenfeld represented individuals who are denied insurance coverage for their health care. He also has brought class actions on behalf of large groups of people who have been denied health-related benefits by insurance companies. He also represented several nonprofit organizations whose mission is to foster or provide excellent health care for people in Massachusetts.
Mr. Rosenfeld consulted on several cases outside Massachusetts involving individuals, large citizen groups, nonprofit organizations and local governments on health-related issues, principally involving access to health care. In the past several years he has advised such clients in more than 20 states.
Mr. Rosenfeld graduated Magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, after attending Brown University. He was awarded a fellowship from Harvard Law School to study at the London School of Economics. He is a frequent lecturer and author in the health care area.
Mr. Rosenfeld has been active in several nonprofit organizations. He was founder of Health Law Advocates Inc., a nonprofit public interest law firm dedicated to gaining access to health care for vulnerable populations in Massachusetts. He was for many years a board member of Health Care for All, a leading grass roots health policy organization. He was a senior legal adviser and board member at Community Catalyst, a national organization dedicated to providing health care-related technical assistance to grass roots organizations and community coalitions throughout the country. For ten years, 1994-2004, he was board chairman of the Massachusetts Advocates for Children (formerly known as the Massachusetts Advocacy Center), a statewide child advocacy organization. He was also a board member of Commonwealth Care Alliance, Inc., a nonprofit total care system for the most chronically ill persons needing medical care.
In the past several years, Mr. Rosenfeld has spent increasing amounts of time in New Orleans, Louisiana, seeking to increase health access for the uninsured. He has participated in litigation challenging the closure of New Orleans’ major public hospital. He has played a role in the creation of the Louisiana Consumer Healthcare Coalition, a new grass roots organization fostered by Community Catalyst. Recently, he created Health Law Advocates of Louisiana (HLA/LA), a public interest law firm dedicated exclusively to health access legal action in Louisiana, and modeled after Health Law Advocates in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, both LCHC and HLALA ceased operations because of a lack of funding.
Since 2011, Mr. Rosenfeld has been a member of the board of directors of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Massachusetts (NAMI Mass.). He is just now (in 2016) finishing three years as chair of the board. During his tenure, he helped create the NAMI Mass. Criminal Justice Diversion Project (CJDP), to partner with police and others to train police in Massachusetts in crisis response to mental illness. He also helped create NAMI Mass. Compass, a statewide resource helpline for families with mental illness.
Mr. Rosenfeld has four children and three grandchildren. He is married to Hon. Margot Botsford, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He lives with his family in Jamaica Plain.
Areas of Practice
- Health Care
- Long Term Disability
- Insurance Coverage
- ERISA
- Consumer Protection
- Americans with Disabilities Act
- Litigation Percentage:
- 40% of Practice Devoted to Litigation
- Bar Admissions:
- Massachusetts, 1968
- U.S. Court of Appeals 1st Circuit, 1976
Education
- Harvard University Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966