Kenneth R. Feinberg ’67, ’02 Hon

Kenneth R. Feinberg is a prominent attorney who has helped to resolve many of the nation’s most challenging and widely known disputes. Feinberg's work in victim compensation began in the 1970s with the Agent Orange settlement. An international expert in complex mediation, arbitration, and alternative dispute resolution, he is well known as the special master for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. He has also worked on Virginia Tech’s Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, the BP Gulf Coast Claims Facility, and One Fund Boston following the Boston Marathon bombings on Patriot’s Day.

After earning a cum laude degree in history from UMass Amherst in 1967, Feinberg delivered the inaugural Student Commencement Address at graduation. He then attended the New York University School of Law. He served as a clerk for Chief Judge of the State of New York Stanley H. Fuld, as a federal prosecutor, and as chief of staff for Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Feinberg founded his Washington, DC-based law firm in 1992. In his capacity as an arbitrator, Feinberg helped determine the fair market value of the original Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination and legal fees in Holocaust slave labor litigation.

In 2004, Feinberg was named "Lawyer of the Year" and has been named repeatedly as one of "The 100 Most Influential Lawyers in America" by the National Law Journal. He was appointed to two presidential-level commissions and has written a book sharing his experience and expertise entitled, What Is Life Worth?  UMass Amherst awarded Feinberg an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2002 for his varied contributions to victim’s compensation.   

Feinberg has donated his professional and personal archives to the UMass Amherst Libraries Special Collections & University Archives to preserve the record of his groundbreaking mediation work on high-profile cases. The Feinberg Papers contain correspondence, memos, drafts, reports, research files and memorabilia. In addition, Feinberg has donated his opera music collection, with more than 9,000 items, to the new Music & Media Collection in the Du Bois Library—doubling the library's classical music collection open to students for browsing and borrowing.

UMass Amherst honored Feinberg in 2013 at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston in recognition of his gifts to the libraries and his leadership as co-chair of the UMass Rising campaign.  In addition, Feinberg delivered the keynote address at the UMass Amherst Salute to Service event in Boston on November 20, 2013.