Jessica Rosenbaum, Law School Class of 1996, is the first recipient of the Edith W. Fine Public Interest Fellowship, named for the late associate justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court. Rosenbaum is working on children rights issues with the Legal Aid Society of Washington, D.C.

Friends, family, and colleagues of Judge Fine established the fellowship last year to honor Fine's distinguished public service career and her pioneering role as one of the earliest women graduates of Harvard Law School. Fine, a member of the Class of 1957, died of cancer in 1995 at the age of 64.

The annual fellowship supports the work of a Harvard Law School graduate who has demonstrated extraordinary leadership and commitment to public service work, especially in the areas of civil or criminal legal assistance to the poor, women's reproductive rights, and anti-discrimination work.

Fine was one of five women in the Class of '57, the fifth graduating class at the School to include women. Her diverse career included Peace Corps service as an administrator in Lima and Peru, work with the Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C., and time as assistant corporation counsel for the city of Boston. She taught law at Yale and the University of Puerto Rico. In 1973 Fine became presiding justice of the Brookline Municipal Court, moving up to the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1982, and eventually joining the appeals court in 1984.