Wilfred Feinberg

Judge Wilfred Feinberg

Wilfred Feinberg (June 22, 1920 in New York) is a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was Chief Judge of the Circuit from 1980 to 1988, and assumed senior status in 1991. He served on the Judicial Conference from 1980 to 1988, chairing the Executive Committee from 1987 to 1988, and also serving as a member of the Long Range Planning Committee from 1991 to 1996. At the time of his appointment to the Circuit in 1966, he was a United States District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Judge Feinberg has authored many seminal opinions, including United States v. Miller, which upheld the constitutionality of a federal law prohibiting the burning of draft cards, NLRB v. J.P. Stevens & Co, the famous labor union case that inspired the movie, Norma Rae, and Kelly v. Wyman, aff'd sub nom. Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U.S. 254, 271 (1970). Several of Judge Feinberg's opinions are listed below.

In 2004, Judge Feinberg received the 22nd Annual Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award, which honors an Article III judge whose career has been exemplary, as measured by the significant contributions to the administration of justice, the advancement of the rule of law, and the improvement of society as a whole. He has also been awarded the Learned Hand Medal for Excellence in Federal Jurisprudence and the Edward Weinfeld Award.

In the pages of the Columbia Law Review, Professor Maurice Rosenberg summarized Judge Feinberg's career, writing "Wilfred Feinberg is the kind of jurist the Founding Fathers must have had in mind when they bestowed life tenure on federal judges. His first twenty-five years on the bench have revealed qualities of mind and conscience that are of the kind most sought after in a judge. Judge Feinberg regards judicial office as a way to serve justice, not as a chance to wield power. And he renders his service superbly -- with intelligence, understanding, kindness, and craftsmanship. He is animated by a disciplined compassion that flows from a humane mind committed to the law." See Maurice Rosenberg, Chief Judge Wilfred Feinberg: A Twenty-fifth Year Tribute, 86 Columbia Law Review 1505 (1986).

Judge Feinberg has written, "I still find it exciting to be a judge and to decide cases. Each year, there are still more appeals that sorely perplex me, and then engage me to the fullest in the attempt, never perfectly achieved, to reach the right result for the right reasons, explained clearly and concisely."

Judge Feinberg received his B.A. degree from Columbia University in 1940, and his LL.B. in 1946 from Columbia Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. Judge Feinberg served in the U.S. Army from 1942 until 1945. After graduating, Judge Feinberg served as law clerk to United States District Judge James P. McGranery of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1947 until 1949, and then was in private law practice in New York from 1949 until 1961, except for service as Deputy Superintendent of Banks, State of New York, in 1958. He received a recess appointment from President John F. Kennedy as to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1961, and permanent appointment to that position the following year.

His former clerks include many law professors, including Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University, Richard Revesz, Dean of New York University Law School, and David Wilkins, Professor at Harvard Law School; judges, including Judge Gerard Lynch, U.S. Circuit Judge for the Second Circuit (and Professor of Law at Columbia), and Judge Michael Dolinger, U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York; public servants such as Francis Blake, former general counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency; and prominent public interest lawyers, including Ralph Cavanagh of the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco and Penda Hair of Advancement Project in Washington, DC. Judge Lynch commented, “I think every single one of Judge Feinberg’s clerks over the years feels that this was the ideal job with which to start a legal career. We all learned an enormous amount by working with an extraordinarily careful, thoughtful and fair judge, but we also gained a lifelong friend and mentor."

Notable cases

• Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Rogers Imports, Inc., 216 F.Supp. 670 (S.D.N.Y. 1963)
• American Exp. Warehousing, Limited v. Transamerica Ins. Co., 380 F.2d 277 (C.A.2 (N.Y.) 1967)
• Kelly v. Wyman, 294 F.Supp. 893 (S.D.N.Y. 1968)
• J. P. Stevens & Co. v. N. L. R. B.,380 F.2d 292 (2d Cir. 1967)
• N.L.R.B. v. J.P. Stevens & Co., Inc.,563 F.2d 8(2d Cir. 1977)
• U.S. v. Bethlehem Steel Corp.,446 F.2d 652 (2d Cir. 1971)
• Goetz v. Ansell,477 F.2d 636 (2d Cir. 1973)
• Matter of Andros Compania Maritima, S.A. of Kissavos (Marc Rich & Co., A.G.),579 F.2d 691 (2d Cir. 1978)
• Independent Bankers Ass'n of New York State, Inc. v. Marine Midland Bank, N.A.,757 F.2d 453

(2d Cir. 1985)

• Knight v.U.S. Fire Ins. Co.,804 F.2d 9 (2d Cir. 1986)
• Kaplan v. City of Burlington,891 F.2d 1024 (2d Cir. 1989)
• New Era Publications Intern., 904 F.2d 152 (2d Cir. 1990)
• In re Joint Eastern and Southern Dist. Asbestos Litigation,982 F.2d 721 (2d Cir. 1992)
  • In re Joint Eastern and Southern Dist. Asbestos Litigation,993 F.2d 7 (2d Cir. 1993)
• Bellamy v. Cogdell,974 F.2d 302 (2d Cir. 1992)
• Atlantic States Legal Foundation, Inc. v. Pan American Tanning Corp.,993 F.2d 1017 (2d Cir. 1993)
• In re U.S., 10 F.3d 931 (2d Cir. 1993)
• Woods v. Bourne Co., 60 F.3d 978 (2d Cir. 1995)
• Hadges v. Yonkers Racing Corp., 48 F.3d 1320 (2d Cir. 1995)
• Baker v. Cuomo, 58 F.3d 814 (2d Cir. 1995)
• Baker v. Pataki, 85 F.3d 919 (2d Cir. 1996)

Published works

• Federal Judicial Center Judicial Writing Project (Board of Editors), 1989-Present
• Expediting Review of Felony Convictions, 59 American Bar Association Journal 1025 (1973)
• Foreword: A National Court of Appeals?, 42 Brooklyn Law Review 611 (1976)
• Foreword: Judicial Administration: Stepchild of the Law, 52 St. Johns Law Review 187 (1978)
• Maritime Arbitration and the Federal Courts, 5 Fordham International Law Journal 245 (1982)
• The National Court of Appeals: Is It Necessary?, 32 The Record, Association of the Bar of the City of New York 106 (1977)
• The State of the Second Circuit, 38 The Record, Association of the Bar of the City of New York 363, May/June, 1983
• Introduction, The Law and the Public, A. Bartlett Giamatti, 38 The Record, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, Jan./Feb., 1983
• Second Circuit Court, A Far Cry From Days of Learned Hand (Transcript), 187 New York Law Journal 1 (1982)
• Tribute: Hon. James D. Hopkins, 3 Pace Law Review 451 (1983)
• Introduction: The Remarkable Hands - An Affectionate Portrait, Published by Federal Bar Association (1983)
• Address Before the New York Patent Law Association (Transcript), 65 Journal Pat. Off. Society 221 (1983)
• Constraining "The Least Dangerous Branch" The Tradition of Attacks on Judicial Power (Madison Lecture), 50 New York University Law Review (May 1984)
• Constraining The Least Dangerous Branch The Tradition of Attacks on Judicial Power (Madison Lecture), The Evolving Constitution, 208 Wesleyan University Press (1989)
• The State of the Second Circuit (Transcript), 39 American Bar Central New York 178 (1984)
• The Office of Chief Judge of a Federal Court of Appeals (Sonnet Lecture), 53 Fordham Law Review 369 (1985)
• Judicial Independence, 36 Syracuse Law Review 885 (1985)
• The State of the Second Circuit (Transcript), 106 F.R.D. 121 (1985)
• Unique Customs and Practices of the Second Circuit (Inaugural Kaplan Lecture) 14 Hofstra Law Review 297 (1986)
• In Memoriam: Henry J. Friendly, 99 Harvard Law Review 1713 (1986)
• The Coming Deterioration of the Federal Judiciary, 42 The Record 179 (1987)
• Is Diversity Jurisdiction an Idea Whose Time Has Passed?, New York State Bar Journal, July, 1989
• Foreword, Distinctive Practices of The Second Circuit, Foundation of the Federal Bar Council, 1989
• Senior Judges: A National Resource, 56 Brooklyn Law Review 409 (1990)
• Arbitration and Antitrust - An Introduction, 44 New York University Law Review 1069 (1969)
• Recent Developments in the Law of Privacy, 48 Columbus Law Review 713 (1948)
• The Role of the Judge, The Grand Design of America's Justice System, 30 Series, Institute of Comparative Law 81, Chūō University, Japan, 1995
• Introduction, Dialogue Between Hon. Frank A. Easterbrook and Hon. John J. Gibbons on Approaches to Judicial Review, The Blessings of Liberty, An Enduring Constitution in a Changing World, Random House, 1989
• A View From the Bench, Experience, The Magazine of the Senior Lawyers Division (ABA) Vol. 7, #1, p.22, Fall, 1996

References

• Wilfred Feinberg at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.
• 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Biography Page
• Findlaw Profile: Hon. Wilfred Feinberg