Attorney Kenneth R. Feinberg, a proud and distinguished Brocktonian, sponsors Brockton Symphony Orchestra's Feinberg Youth Competition. Mr. Feinberg is Founder and Managing Partner of Feinberg Rozen, LLP, the nation's foremost law firm for mediation, arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution.
Mr. Feinberg was born in Brockton, Massachusetts and earned a degree in history from the University of Massachusetts and a law degree from the New York University School of Law. He worked for five years as an administrative assistant and chief of staff for U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy and as an Assistant United States Attorney. Before founding his own firm, The Feinberg Group, LLP, he was a founding partner at the Washington office of Kaye Scholer LLP.
One of the nation's leading experts in mediation and alternative dispute resolution, Mr. Feinberg was appointed by Attorney General John Ashcroft to be Special Master of the U.S. Government's September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which distributed nearly $7 billion to more than 5,000 victims and families of victims of 9/11. Working pro bono for 33 months, he developed the regulations governing the administration of the fund and administered all aspects of the program, including evaluating applications, determining appropriate compensation and disseminating awards.
Three years later, Mr. Feinberg agreed to administrate the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, set up for the benefit of victims' families in the wake of the 2007 Virginia Tech mass shooting.
In July 2009, Mr. Feinberg was appointed by the U. S. Treasury Department to oversee the compensation of top executives at companies that received federal bailout assistance. As the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation and popularly called the 'pay czar', Mr. Feinberg announced in late October 2009 that the Treasury Department would slash compensation for the 25 highest-paid executives at the seven firms that received the largest chunks of federal bailout money.
As of June 2010, Mr. Feinberg serves as the government-appointed administrator of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Victim Compensation Fund, a $20 billion fund to pay claims for the BP oil spill.
Mr. Feinberg is currently Chairman of the Board of the RAND Institute of Civil Justice. He is Vice-Chairman of the Board of Human Rights First and is a member of the Board of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. He is also President of the Washington National Opera.
Mr. Feinberg was designated Lawyer of the Year by the National Law Journal in 2004 and has been named repeatedly on the Journal's Profiles in Power: The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America. Mr. Feinberg has taught as an adjunct law professor at Georgetown, the University of Pennsylvania, New York University, Columbia, and the University of Virginia. He is the author of numerous articles and essays on mediation, mass torts and other matters and is the author of What is Life Worth? The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11 (Public Affairs 2005).
He is married to Diane S. Feinberg and they have three adult children and two grandchildren.
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