Joseph Forer (11 August 1910 – 20 June 1986) was a 20th-century American attorney who, with partner David Rein, supported Progressive causes, including discriminated communists and African-Americans. Forer was one of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild and its DC chapter. He was also an expert in the "Lost Laws" of Washington, DC, enacted in 1872–1873, that outlawed segregation at business places.
Background
Joseph Forer was born in 1911 in Trenton, New Jersey. He received a state scholarship for college. Forer received his BA and MA from Rutgers University, where he excelled as a student and joined Phi Beta Kappa. In 1936, he received a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. In June 1936, Forer received UPenn's "Peter McCall Prize." Forer also served on the University of Pennsylvania Law Review as contributor, editor, and managing editor.
Career
New Deal
After graduating from law school, Forer joined the United States Treasury.
Around 1937, like his friend David Rein, Forer joined the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Also in 1937, Forer became a founder of the National Lawyers Guild. He served as chairman of the District Affairs Committee of the DC chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. During 1940, he worked for the Rural Electrification Administration.
Starting in 1941, he worked in the Office of Price Administration (OPA). Thomas Irwin Emerson (1907–1991), later a First Amendment scholar, worked with Forer at the NLRB and supervised Forer at OPA. Another OPA colleague was Herman A. Greenberg, director of food enforcement; Forer was direct of apparel and industrial materials enforcement. In his role, Forer helped enforce pricing policies on black market lumber. He noted the need for training of OPA agents in the field. He appeared in legal cases on behalf of OPA, e.g., Porter v. Senderowitz. He upheld legal action against J.C. Penney.
While at OPA, Forer first appeared before congressional hearings. On September 27, 1944, as an OPA director, Forer testified as an OPA "attorney for the Division" of Apparel before a "Select Committee of the House of Representatives to Investigate Acts of Executive Agencies Beyond the Scope of Their Authority." He described himself at an "enforcement attorney" when questioned by US Representative Fred A. Hartley Jr. (Rep-NJ) (soon to be co-sponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act). He advised OPA when companies charges prices higher than government price ceilings. Hartley attacked Forer and colleagues for failing to grant pretrial conference and for appealing an adverse ruling.
Law firm
In August 1948, Forer and Greenberg resigned from the OPA. Later that year, David Rein joined Forer as private practice law partners in Washington, DC. They formed "Greenberg, Forer & Rein" with Herman Greenberg (who represented Julian Wadleigh just prior to his appearing as a witness during the Hiss-Chambers case). By 1949, the firm was still "Greenberg, Forer & Rein" at 1105 K Street NW in Washington. In 1950, they listed as "Forer & Rein" at 711 14 Street NW in 718 of the Kass Building. One of their early clients was the Food, Tobacco, Agricultural, and Allied Workers (FTA-CIO), a "Communist-led union." Another early client was the National Maritime Union.
Together, they "represented more than 100 persons who had been termed 'unfriendly' witnesses by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee headed by the late senator Joseph McCarthy."
1940s: Mundt-Nixon Bill, Progressive party
In July 1947, Forer represented the FTA CIO against R.J. Reynolds before HUAC when two members pled the Fifth Amendment when asked to name communists. The FTA claimed accusations before HUAC by witness Ann Mathews, who name them among 15 communist members within the union, was really an attack by RJR against an 8,000 FTA strike.
In September 1947 during his second appearance before HUAC, Gerhard Eisler asked to have Herman Greenberg and Joseph Forer represent him.
On November 28, 1947, Forer, as acting chairman of the First Southeast Chapter of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, charged that members of a Congress Heights Citizens Association had made "references to vigilantism and to possible use of violence" to keep African-Americans out of that section of town. In December 1947, Forer asked that US Attorney General Tom C. Clark investigate.
In early December 1947, Forer and Rein represented the National Maritime Union CIO (NMU) to file a challenge in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, asking the court to invalidate a filing for financial data of unions.