Joseph Kelner, 98, Dies; Led Kent State Lawsuit
Joseph Kelner, a lawyer who took on the sitting governor of Ohio, a former university president and the National Guard in a suit on behalf of the student victims of the Kent State shootings in 1970, died on Monday in Manhasset, N.Y. He was 98.
The death was confirmed by his son Robert.
Mr. Kelner, who was president of both the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and the American Trial Lawyers Association, was a trial specialist who concentrated on personal injury and medical malpractice cases.
Mr. Kelner took on a number of notable clients, including, for a time, Bernhard H. Goetz, the so-called subway vigilante, who became a lightning rod in a national debate about crime, race and guns in December 1984 when he, a white man, shot four black teenagers who he claimed had tried to rob him in a subway car.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/us/joseph-kelner-98-dies-led-kent-state-lawsuit.html
