Roisman received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1959 from the University of Connecticut with high honors, a distinction in English and in History, as well as a membership in Phi Beta Kappa.
Subsequent to her tenure with NLSP, she worked with the legal services program both in private practice and through the National Housing Law Project.
[citation needed] In a speech to the National Legal Aid & Defender Association, Roisman told the audience of public interest lawyers that "it is your responsibility to end poverty — to attack and eliminate the structures that keep people in the United States poor.
"[1] In that speech, and in an earlier article entitled "The Lawyer As Abolitionist", she said that there is no inevitability about poverty, and that advocates need to accept nothing less than good education, jobs, health care and housing for all.
Roisman encourages lawsuits to strike down the alleged inequity of large housing tax breaks to wealthy homeowners and the comparative pittance to help the poor.
[7] In 2011 she received the Cushing Niles Dolbeare Lifetime Service Award from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
[8] In 2014 she received the M. Shanara Gilbert Human Rights Award from the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT).