Ira M. Feinberg is a lawyer in New York City, who currently serves as Deputy Solicitor General for Criminal Matters in the New York State Attorney General’s Office. He graduated from Rutgers College in 1968, with highest honors, and from Harvard Law School in 1972, magna cum laude. At Harvard, he served as the Supreme Court Note Editor of the Harvard Law Review.
After serving as a law clerk to Chief Judge Henry Friendly on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for a year, Ira clerked for Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court during the 1973-1974 Term. Since then, he has had a distinguished career in both public service and private law practice. He first was a partner in the law firm O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, before returning to New York and serving as a federal prosecutor in the United States Attorney’s Office in Manhattan for 11 years, including service as Chief Appellate Attorney.
Upon leaving the United States Attorney’s Office, Ira joined Hogan & Harston (now Hogan Lovells), a large Washington-based law firm as a partner, and practiced in their New York office for 23 years before joining the New York Attorney General’s Office two years ago. While in private practice, Ira devoted substantial time to pro bono work consistent with the values of Thurgood Marshall, including cases involving racial justice and voting rights, and coordinated the pro bono activities of the firm’s New York office. He also served for many years on the Board of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. He has also played a substantial role in maintaining contact with other lawyers who clerked for Thurgood Marshall over the years, and assisted in organizing several reunions of Justice Marshall’s law clerks.