Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This week on Masters in Business, I really have a
Speaker 1: special guest. Then. I know I say that every week,
Speaker 1: but this week our special guest is literally a special master.
Speaker 1: His name is Ken Feinberg, and you probably know him
Speaker 1: as the person who essentially handled some of the compensation
Speaker 1: claims of some of the most horrific experiences in in
Speaker 1: recent American history. He was the special Master of the
Speaker 1: September eleventh Victims compensation funds the BP Gulf Sentiment general motors.
Speaker 1: The pays are Boston Marathon, Barman, on and on down
Speaker 1: the whole list. And uh, I keep saying, I want
Speaker 1: to try and interview new and different people who might
Speaker 1: not be the usual economist, hedge fund manager, slash trader
Speaker 1: and go a loop will further Afield, And today we
Speaker 1: do just that. I think he's really a fascinating, fascinating gentleman.
Speaker 1: The country really owes him a debt of gratitude. You
Speaker 1: may not know this, but he did the entire September
Speaker 1: eleven compensation fund pro bono. That's him and his office
Speaker 1: working for thirty three months really to to help resolve
Speaker 1: one of the great tragedies in recent American history. And
Speaker 1: he did it a great personal um psychological cost to
Speaker 1: himself and and no compensation. And especially considering the government
Speaker 1: told out seven billion dollars in in victim compensation, he
Speaker 1: certainly was entitled to a reasonable fee. And and he decided, UH,
Speaker 1: as a patriot, this is what he wanted to do.
Speaker 1: This is how he wanted to give back to his country.
Speaker 1: And and that's really quite wonderful. I think you will
Speaker 1: find him to be a thoughtful, philosophical, interesting gentleman who
Speaker 1: who has just worked on some of the most amazing
Speaker 1: things in American history. So, rather than have me babbel
Speaker 1: without any further ado, my conversation with Special Master Ken Feinberg.
Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: I have a special guest. And when I say special,
Speaker 1: he is literally a special Master. One Ken Feinberg. You
Speaker 1: probably know the name, as I'm only going to do
Speaker 1: the short version of your curriculum vitae Special Master for
Speaker 1: the September eleven victims compensation funds. He handled the BP
Speaker 1: Gulf settlement, the g M ignition situation, the financial crisis
Speaker 1: known as the Paysar. We'll talk about why that's an
Speaker 1: inappropriate name. UM Boston Marathon, one, fun Fund bombing, Sandusky,
Speaker 1: pan State, Newton, Sandy Hook. The This is just the
Speaker 1: tip of the iceberg. There's many more. I'm gonna start
Speaker 1: with a quote from the Boston Globe that says, if
Speaker 1: scientists ever perfect human cloning, they should make copies of
Speaker 1: Kenneth Finberg, the Brocton Native informer Ted Kenney staffer who
Speaker 1: has become renowned for allocating money wisely amid political and
Speaker 1: emotional firestorms. Ken Finberg, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thank you glad
Speaker 1: to be here. So that's really quite an amazing curriculum, Vita,
Speaker 1: all the different things you've worked on over the years,
Speaker 1: and and we're gonna spend a lot of time talking
Speaker 1: about that. But you once said something and it contradicts
Speaker 1: some common experience I've had, So I wanna have you
Speaker 1: start out with responding to this. I always believed that
Speaker 1: anytime someone says, look, it's not the money, it's the principle,
Speaker 1: it's almost always the money. But when that came up
Speaker 1: in the September eleven funds, you actually had an interesting quote.
Speaker 1: You said, it's not greed, but grief. Explain that money
Speaker 1: in our society viewed as a barometer or as a
Speaker 1: reflection on unanticipated, unpredicted grief resulting from the attacks that
Speaker 1: led to deaths and physical injuries, so that survivors, either
Speaker 1: of the attacks or the family of the dead, view
Speaker 1: the compensation as a reflection on the value of a
Speaker 1: lost loved one in times of grief. And that's why
Speaker 1: it's almost like an emotional salve to what they've confronted
Speaker 1: and faced. So it's really in that situation, it's not
Speaker 1: about the money. It's about what they're feeling and how
Speaker 1: could you possibly put a number on this? That's right.
Speaker 1: The toughest part in all of these programs, Barry, that
Speaker 1: you referenced in your introduction, the toughest pot clearly is
Speaker 1: not calculating damages or the amount of money that somebody
Speaker 1: should receive. I think that's not rocket science. It's done
Speaker 1: every day in our society. Or here, here's your earnings expectations,
Speaker 1: here's your life expectancy equals, here's an amount for pain
Speaker 1: and suffering ABC, and there's your award. No, it's the
Speaker 1: emotion that you confront when you sit one on one
Speaker 1: with people who have suffered horrible loss and listen to
Speaker 1: the tales of wool, validating the memory of a lost
Speaker 1: loved one, venting about life, sun fairness, that is what
Speaker 1: takes its toll, not calculating dollars. Fascinating. So so we're
Speaker 1: gonna come back to more of that, but let's let's
Speaker 1: roll back to your early career. You spent some time
Speaker 1: as administrative assistant in chief of staff for U S.
Speaker 1: Senator Ted Kennedy. You graduate n y U Law school.
Speaker 1: How did you make your way to Ted Kennedy's office.
Speaker 1: I was a prosecutor in the U. S. Attorney's office
Speaker 1: in the Southern District of New York and assistant U
Speaker 1: S Attorney, and I got word through the grape vine
Speaker 1: that Ted Kennedy was looking for an experienced criminal law
Speaker 1: practitioner to join his excellent staff on the Senate Judiciary
Speaker 1: Committee Criminal Law Issues. So I applied. While I'm a Brocton,
Speaker 1: mass Native, and I applied to Senator Kennedy's office, got
Speaker 1: an invitation, met with him, he hired me, and that
Speaker 1: was the beginning of my five years with this extraordinary man.
Speaker 1: And you eventually become chief of staff for his Senate office.
Speaker 1: The last two years nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: I was his chief of staff in the U. S. Senate,
Speaker 1: running his operation. And I must say it was a
Speaker 1: fabulous opportunity. So so here we are. You're you're now
Speaker 1: a known entity on Capitol Hill. September eleven comes along
Speaker 1: and uh the Attorney General the United States, John Ashcroft
Speaker 1: says to you, we need somebody to oversee this congressional funds.
Speaker 1: And you said, yes, I'll do it, but only if
Speaker 1: I can do it without compensation. What was the thinking
Speaker 1: that My thinking was? I thought it highly inappropriate to
Speaker 1: be making money off of the dead and the injured
Speaker 1: resulting from a foreign terrorist attack. I thought it would
Speaker 1: be unpatriotic A and B. I thought that if I
Speaker 1: were getting money at the same time that I was
Speaker 1: calculating money for the victims and their families, there would
Speaker 1: be a firestorm that I'm making blood money. And I
Speaker 1: just thought I had enough challenges without being paid. But
Speaker 1: you did this for thirty three months plus, you and
Speaker 1: most of your office was running this that that's quite
Speaker 1: a commitment of time and energy and resources and money.
Speaker 1: It was. But on the other hand, there never was
Speaker 1: and there never will be a nine eleven precedent like
Speaker 1: that one. And and I think what the country went
Speaker 1: through and is still going through in terms of UM,
Speaker 1: the implications of the nine eleven attacks, UM made it
Speaker 1: imperative that I step up and do my job as
Speaker 1: a public citizen. When you graduated at n YU, did
Speaker 1: you ever imagine you'd find your way to being a
Speaker 1: Special Master? Is this what you thought your your career
Speaker 1: would be? Never? Ever? I am a post a child
Speaker 1: for the proposition that people should not plan their career
Speaker 1: more than one year in advance, and they shouldn't plan
Speaker 1: the life too far ahead, because life has a way
Speaker 1: of throwing curveballs at everybody and changing the best laid plans,
Speaker 1: to say the least. This is Masters in Business US
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Barry Ridholts. I'm speaking with Special
Speaker 1: Master Ken Feinberg, and in this segment we're going to
Speaker 1: discuss the nine eleven victims compensation funds. So obviously nine
Speaker 1: eleven is a horrific event. My office was headquartered in
Speaker 1: two World Trade. I was on in the Long Island
Speaker 1: office and had a running narrative from my head trader,
Speaker 1: who was um just outside the buildings as everything happened.
Speaker 1: Horrible seeing the entire country rallies around, uh up surge
Speaker 1: of patriotism. And now it lands on your lap to
Speaker 1: figure out how do you compensate three thousand plus victims
Speaker 1: seven billion dollars? Where do you even begin with something
Speaker 1: like that? You begin with the statute. Congress passed a
Speaker 1: law signed by President Bush, and the law said that
Speaker 1: anybody who wants to come into this fund voluntarily funded
Speaker 1: entire early by taxpayer public money. Anybody who wants to
Speaker 1: do it can voluntarily decide, and a special Master appointed
Speaker 1: by the Attorney General John Ashcroft will calculate individual awards,
Speaker 1: award compensation, and authorize the U. S. Treasury to cut
Speaker 1: a check over the thirty three month life of that statute,
Speaker 1: of that program, that was the whole statute. Under three years,
Speaker 1: seven percent of all the families that lost a loved
Speaker 1: one on nine eleven on the airplanes the World Trade
Speaker 1: Center of the Pentagon came into the fund. Only four
Speaker 1: people decided they'd rather sue then come into the fund,
Speaker 1: and they all settled their claims five years later. There
Speaker 1: never was a trial on responsibility for nine eleven how
Speaker 1: many of the three percent that didn't come into the
Speaker 1: fund were people that you described as so grief stricken
Speaker 1: they couldn't even sign. I think that was it, just
Speaker 1: just because you told the story of going to a
Speaker 1: woman's house and saying, I filled out the papers for you,
Speaker 1: this is two million dollars, just sign here, and she
Speaker 1: just said she couldn't do that. Woman was so grief stricken, Barry.
Speaker 1: She didn't sue either, She did nothing nothing. She and
Speaker 1: I believe a priest who lost a brother were the
Speaker 1: only two people that neither came into my fund nor
Speaker 1: litigated against the airlines in the World Trade Center. So
Speaker 1: paralyzed were they by grief they couldn't do it either.
Speaker 1: That's just just uh, you learn, you learn in doing
Speaker 1: what I do, that grief can paralyze people. It can
Speaker 1: make them act so unreasonably. I said to the woman,
Speaker 1: Mrs Jones, you're gonna get about three million dollars tax free,
Speaker 1: set up a fund in your son's name. Go away,
Speaker 1: Mr Finberg, I lost my son and you're here to
Speaker 1: talk about money. And she never filed. That's just amazing,
Speaker 1: that's just just astonishing. So thirty three months, seven billion
Speaker 1: dollars um. When you first started thinking about the awards,
Speaker 1: you approached this almost as if it was the regular
Speaker 1: calculations that courts make every day when there's any sort
Speaker 1: of wrongful death claim. Was it was that part of
Speaker 1: the congressional mandate. That was part of the congressional mandate
Speaker 1: that the congress the law instructed me in calculating damages
Speaker 1: to consider the torch system. Well, that's just what I did.
Speaker 1: Some people think that I placed a value on lives
Speaker 1: based on the moral integrity of an individual. I didn't
Speaker 1: do that. How do you evaluate the moral integrity of
Speaker 1: three thousand people, rabbis and priests making that. I don't
Speaker 1: do that. I simply did what you just said, what
Speaker 1: would the person have earned over a work life? But
Speaker 1: four nine eleven, so you got a lot of pushback
Speaker 1: from like fireman's wives and other people who were making,
Speaker 1: you know, middle class salaries versus investment bankers and bond
Speaker 1: traders were making ten and twenty times that amount. How
Speaker 1: did you deal with that sort of uh, that sort
Speaker 1: of response to this very very difficult Mr Finberg. My
Speaker 1: husband was a fireman. He died at the World Trade
Speaker 1: Center rushing in to save people. You're giving me two
Speaker 1: million dollars. You're giving my next door neighbor, whose wife
Speaker 1: was a bank of for Enron four million dollars. What
Speaker 1: do you have against my husband? You didn't even meet
Speaker 1: my husband, and yet you're giving me two million less.
Speaker 1: There is no justice here and you have to deal
Speaker 1: with that all the time. Always remember this, I've learned.
Speaker 1: When you have a program that compensates victims, and there
Speaker 1: are numerous victims, everybody counts other people's money. It's not
Speaker 1: just what am I going to receive from Fineberg? What
Speaker 1: am I going to receive as opposed to my next
Speaker 1: door neighbor? And you better batten down the hatches, embrace
Speaker 1: yourself because that gets very, very emotional. The old joke
Speaker 1: defines wealth as a hundred dollars more than my brother
Speaker 1: in law, and people are looking at at other people now.
Speaker 1: In subsequent settlement cases, you basically came up with an
Speaker 1: the same number for everybody. Did did that experience impact
Speaker 1: subsequent not at all? Not at all. In subsequent matters
Speaker 1: in which I again I am compensating people as an
Speaker 1: alternative to the tort system bp GM, the same, everybody
Speaker 1: gets a different amount because you're trying to entice people
Speaker 1: out of litigating. What a bad Places like Sandy holl
Speaker 1: Datto or Sandy Hook, Aurora, Colorado, Virginia Tech, the Boston Marathon.
Speaker 1: Those aren't alternatives to the tort system. Those are gift programs.
Speaker 1: You don't waive your right to sue. Take the money
Speaker 1: and sue if you want. Those programs are very different. There.
Speaker 1: I design programs where one size does fit all because
Speaker 1: there's no obligation on the pot of the recipient to
Speaker 1: do anything but take the money. That's quite fascinating. So
Speaker 1: a gift program, it's it's an even divide. And did
Speaker 1: people complain about that? Did you get the same sort
Speaker 1: of thing or much much less? People complain and criticized
Speaker 1: no matter what you I wish people could see your
Speaker 1: face right now. People complain. Why shouldn't they complain, Barry?
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't Because it's a tragedy and this is a
Speaker 1: lovely gift and here this will make your life a
Speaker 1: little bit easier. And let's all start the healing. Prestof Heinberg.
Speaker 1: I lost my son driving a GM automobile. I lost
Speaker 1: my son on nine eleven, and you're offering me money
Speaker 1: bring my son back. How's that? Mr Finberg? And you
Speaker 1: dealt with that every day, every day the Boston Marathon.
Speaker 1: Mr Jones, you lost your leg when the Barrathon bombs
Speaker 1: went off. I'm here to let you know that you're
Speaker 1: going to receive from one fun Boston tax free, one million,
Speaker 1: one d and twenty five thousand dollars. I am, Mr Finberg.
Speaker 1: That's what you're gonna give me. I got a better idea.
Speaker 1: Keep the money, give me my leg back. How's that?
Speaker 1: I wish I could do that. If I had the
Speaker 1: power to do that, you'd have two legs. But I
Speaker 1: don't have that. I have this gift from people, and thanks,
Speaker 1: but no thanks. That's that's amazing. You're listening to Masters
Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this week,
Speaker 1: Special Master Ken Finberg, who oversaw some of the most
Speaker 1: complex and complicated litigation and alternatives to litigation settlement cases
Speaker 1: of all time, everything from the September eleven compensation fund
Speaker 1: to Agent Orange that was one of your early careers,
Speaker 1: the Dalkon shield. I went. I missed a lot of
Speaker 1: these um as bestos personal injury litigation. There's a ton
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the BP Gulf Fund that's still probably
Speaker 1: the most recent, although I guess GM is a little fresher. Um.
Speaker 1: What was your role in the BP case? The same?
Speaker 1: In BP, I was asked by the Obama administration I
Speaker 1: BP to design and administer a compensation program funded entirely
Speaker 1: by VP, to compensate the victims of the oil spill,
Speaker 1: those businesses and fishermen and shrimpers and hotels on the
Speaker 1: beach in Florida and the Gulf who were adversely impacted
Speaker 1: economically by the oil spill. And that's what I did
Speaker 1: for sixteen months. How much money was dispersed out of
Speaker 1: that fund while you were running it? While I was
Speaker 1: running it, we distributed in sixteen months six and a
Speaker 1: half billion dollars speak. He put up twenty billion, and
Speaker 1: I distributed the first six and a half billion and
Speaker 1: paid about a half a million claims um and received
Speaker 1: releases so people wouldn't sue. Were we we compensated of
Speaker 1: all the victims of the oil spill. So now this
Speaker 1: was a little different situation. In the nine eleven Victims
Speaker 1: Compensation Fund, you're appointed by the Attorney General, you do
Speaker 1: it pro bono. Here you're hired by BP. How is
Speaker 1: that process so different from each other? Oh? Very different
Speaker 1: as we as you pointed out, Berry nine eleven was
Speaker 1: a patriotic duty. This is a international oil company, UM
Speaker 1: flush who UM decided in its wisdom, we will pay
Speaker 1: Mr Fineberg and the entire staff to quickly and efficiently
Speaker 1: calm and said all the victims of the spill. We
Speaker 1: do not want a replication of excen Valdis litigating for
Speaker 1: twenty years. We want to get rid of this, and
Speaker 1: so we set it up, Wrap it up, move on. Now.
Speaker 1: There was some pushback because you're you're compensated as opposed
Speaker 1: to non eleven. How did how did you respond to
Speaker 1: people who said, oh, Finberg can't be fair because he's
Speaker 1: being paid by BP. Very difficult. First, don't take the money.
Speaker 1: It's voluntary. If you think that Feinberg is not being
Speaker 1: fair even though billions of dollars are going out the door,
Speaker 1: then by all means opt out. So did people have
Speaker 1: to make that opt interrupt out decision before they knew
Speaker 1: what their number was. If you present a number, you
Speaker 1: could take it, or you could see exactly. So I said,
Speaker 1: here seems pretty reasonable. Well, here's the money. A free preview,
Speaker 1: a free preview. If you think this adequately compensates you
Speaker 1: in Amanda, that will allow you to take the money
Speaker 1: in sixty days and wave your right to litigate. Well, virtually,
Speaker 1: virtually everybody took the money. Why wouldn't they take the money?
Speaker 1: They saw money flowing out of our office. Two thousands
Speaker 1: of people who were apparently satisfied with what they were receiving,
Speaker 1: took the money, signed a release not to litigate, and
Speaker 1: walked away. So subsequent to you leaving UM that compensation fund,
Speaker 1: sixty Minutes did a piece about how what happened afterwards,
Speaker 1: where people were making claims who essentially had no damage
Speaker 1: from or at least that was the argument by BP,
Speaker 1: that there was no damage from the oil spill. That
Speaker 1: was the argument I I explain to people I'm leaving now,
Speaker 1: I've resolved two percent of all the eligible victims of
Speaker 1: the spill, and now there's very few left. BP decided
Speaker 1: to continue a program, not with me but with others,
Speaker 1: as you say, and it unraveled. People started filing claims
Speaker 1: and making making claims on damage and it became pretty ugly.
Speaker 1: But my favorite version of that was the guy in
Speaker 1: Norway who claimed claimed damage from that so I received
Speaker 1: in sixteen months one million, two hundred thousand claims from
Speaker 1: fifty states. I got about three hundred claims from New York.
Speaker 1: I didn't know the oil had got here to New York.
Speaker 1: I got claims from thirty five foreign You got claims
Speaker 1: in Hawaii, everywhere, Alaska, twenty from Alaska. I got claims
Speaker 1: from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, China, Nigeria. I got claims from everywhere. Well,
Speaker 1: everybody gets claims from Nigeria. But um, that's usually just
Speaker 1: uh an emails fraud. Um. What percentage of the initial
Speaker 1: claims were junk claims? How many claims did you have
Speaker 1: to throw I think I threw out two thirds of
Speaker 1: the Really that many people see money and they that's it.
Speaker 1: They just go after it. Either they file a claim
Speaker 1: that makes no sense, or or they file a claim
Speaker 1: that may make sense, but they have no proof. Mr Feinberg,
Speaker 1: I lost a hundred thousand dollars because I couldn't fish.
Speaker 1: I see, well, do you have a tax return or
Speaker 1: a profit? We do things with a handshake down. Here.
Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Barry Ridhalts.
Speaker 1: I'm here speaking with Ken Feinberg special master. You know,
Speaker 1: the American Bar Association called you the master of disaster
Speaker 1: and said that Ken Feinberg is changing the course of
Speaker 1: mass toward resolution. Are you? Why do you say that? Why?
Speaker 1: I did nine eleven, I did BP, I did GM.
Speaker 1: That's almost wrapped up now, right, these three mass towards
Speaker 1: that's it, Agent Orange, DALC on Shield. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: asbestos litigations Agian Orange, DL con Shield and asbestos litigation
Speaker 1: all were settled under the auspices of a mass taught court.
Speaker 1: Only nine eleven, BP and um GM are alternative programs,
Speaker 1: divorced from the courts, separate. So when people say to me,
Speaker 1: this is the wave of the future, you're changing the law,
Speaker 1: I'm changing nothing. These programs are aberrations, Barry, they are not.
Speaker 1: Let me push back on that. So the the Agan
Speaker 1: Orange case went on for how many years after Vietnam
Speaker 1: before some young kid named Ken Feinberg comes along and says,
Speaker 1: to the chemistry companies who only offered twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: for all of them, versus the veterans who wanted a
Speaker 1: billion dollars, you said, oh, that's a range I could
Speaker 1: work with. And so you have to look at this
Speaker 1: on an I don't need to lecture you on a continuum.
Speaker 1: Starting with agent orange and then going to asbestos. You
Speaker 1: basically took the concept of, hey, there's a better way
Speaker 1: than everybody banging heads and courts, and let's see if
Speaker 1: we can find some middle grounds that will allow everyone
Speaker 1: to get on with their lives. There are mass toart
Speaker 1: cases like agent Orange, like delk on Shield, like asbestos.
Speaker 1: We are the parties, I think realize you're better off
Speaker 1: mediating a settlement with Ken Feinberg or a judge or whoever,
Speaker 1: rather than litigate for years and years and roll the
Speaker 1: dice and pay the lawyers and who knows how to
Speaker 1: end up. That's true now, I think most mass towards
Speaker 1: end up being resolved. Most cases, most litigation, most litigation
Speaker 1: gets solved in that sense, I mean there there there's
Speaker 1: a recognition that litigation doesn't work, it's not efficient. But
Speaker 1: these special programs enacted by Congress or set up by GMA,
Speaker 1: by BP, I think they're a precedent for nothing, really nothing.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, are you waiting for the phones to
Speaker 1: ring from Volkswagen? Are you gonna have to settle their
Speaker 1: case for them. I'll say one thing about Volkswagen which
Speaker 1: people shouldn't lose sight of. No matter what Volkswagen decides
Speaker 1: to do about this problem, there are no deaths, there
Speaker 1: are no injuries. These are problems of property value. Some
Speaker 1: economists did a study that said, based on the falsification,
Speaker 1: there's this much more pollution and we could figure out
Speaker 1: statistically a hundred and thirty five more people died from
Speaker 1: air pollution than whatever. Interesting a model that I think
Speaker 1: you're chuckling a little bit. But the Volkswagen problem is
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly a pr problem and an environmental problem, with the
Speaker 1: e p A and the Justice Department of looking at it.
Speaker 1: But in terms of individual will damage to the auto owner,
Speaker 1: it is a property claim. Now there may be different values,
Speaker 1: but it's a property claim. You're not involved with calculating,
Speaker 1: as we did earlier in the segment, calculating lost live
Speaker 1: physical injury. This is an easy, much easier so al right,
Speaker 1: so you know, emotionally much easier. That's the Fineberg Law
Speaker 1: Office in Washington, d C. Volkswagen, if you want to
Speaker 1: resolve this sooner rather than later. Um, let's let's come
Speaker 1: back to this. So so we we said earlier. It's
Speaker 1: easy to calculate the economic value of a life. You
Speaker 1: look at life expectancy and future earnings, and you could
Speaker 1: you could do the math philosophically working with all these tragedies.
Speaker 1: How has that impacted you as the media? Has it
Speaker 1: changed your perspective on the value of how we all
Speaker 1: live our lives? Yes, what I do is extremely debilitating, debilitating.
Speaker 1: Oh my good to shoot. You can't sleep. You're dealing
Speaker 1: with people who lost loved ones who are venting to
Speaker 1: you about life sunfairness, validating the memory of a lost
Speaker 1: loved one, raising issues that Solomon would have trouble resolving.
Speaker 1: And I'm not Solomon by any means. And you've been
Speaker 1: compared well unfairly. Um but but it is extremely difficult, difficult,
Speaker 1: and you become very fatalistic. You do Oh, I don't
Speaker 1: think I'll plan more than two weeks ahead. You don't
Speaker 1: know what's going to happen. Life has a way, Barry
Speaker 1: of throwing curveballs at everybody. I tell people all the time,
Speaker 1: don't map your future too far out into the future.
Speaker 1: Life has a way of changing the rules. I used
Speaker 1: to work with a judge named Anthony Marcarello is a
Speaker 1: fairly well known judge. This is twenty plus years ago,
Speaker 1: and um back when I was a practicing lawyer, and
Speaker 1: when he used to say to people trying to settle cases,
Speaker 1: look at and by the way, he's still around and
Speaker 1: still doing mediation. Used to say at my age, I
Speaker 1: won't even buy green bananas, and everybody would chuckle, but
Speaker 1: the thought would enter your head. You're saying the same thing,
Speaker 1: absolutely right. I tell law students, Mr Farnberg, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I should do with my first job, because
Speaker 1: three years from now I want to do. Three years
Speaker 1: from now, take a job that you like, that you
Speaker 1: can get, that pays what you need, enjoy it. Don't
Speaker 1: worry about three years from now. I guarantee you three
Speaker 1: years from now you'll have a different outlook than the
Speaker 1: day day one when you stop your current position. So
Speaker 1: so this has really left a mark on you having
Speaker 1: having gone through this. Some of the negatives are obvious.
Speaker 1: What are some of the positives you've taken away from
Speaker 1: from listening to these horrific tales of loss? I'll tell
Speaker 1: you one positive. Never underestimate bury the charitable impulse of
Speaker 1: the American people. It is unbelievable to me. Boston Marathon
Speaker 1: in sixty days, a hundred thousand people contribute sixty one
Speaker 1: million dollars for distribution, Virginia Tech in a matter of
Speaker 1: weeks eight million dollars, Sandy Hook, Connecticut eleven million dollars, Aurora,
Speaker 1: Colorado five million dollars. People in America come to the
Speaker 1: AI to the rescue of people in need. And I've
Speaker 1: been around the world. No nation on Earth shows this
Speaker 1: degree of charity in times of need the way the
Speaker 1: American people do there. But for fortune, we're going to contribute. Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: life is random. And how many times you know, I
Speaker 1: went to school with a woman who was on one
Speaker 1: of the nine eleven playing And how many times do
Speaker 1: you hear of people changing seats or missing a plane
Speaker 1: and some tragedy happens. It's completely serendipitous, it's completely ran
Speaker 1: And then what people have to confront I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: A twenty four year old woman came to see me
Speaker 1: after nine eleven crying, crying. Mr Finberg, I lost my husband.
Speaker 1: He was a fireman at the World Trade Center. He
Speaker 1: got out of the building, he escaped. He saw that
Speaker 1: some people were trapped in the lobby. He ran back
Speaker 1: save those people in the lobby and brought them across
Speaker 1: the plaza safely to Lower Broadway. While he was walking
Speaker 1: on the plaza, having rescued them, he was killed when
Speaker 1: somebody jumped from the hundred and third floor of the
Speaker 1: World Trade Center and hit him, killing them both. Mr Finberg.
Speaker 1: If he had taken one step either way, he'd be
Speaker 1: alive today. There is no God that would allow this
Speaker 1: to happen. Mr Farmer. So what what do you say
Speaker 1: to a person like that? What can you say? Mrs Jones?
Speaker 1: I wish I could bring your husband back. I don't
Speaker 1: have that power. All I can do small solace is
Speaker 1: give you money so you have a bit more financial
Speaker 1: security for you and your children. But in terms of
Speaker 1: the horror of this, Mrs Jones, there's nothing I can say.
Speaker 1: That's that's unbelievable, and and that stays with you forever, forever.
Speaker 1: There's no there's no shaking that often and moving moving on.
Speaker 1: So you we we mentioned earlier, you have a when
Speaker 1: we were speaking before we started. You have a birthday
Speaker 1: coming up. You're gonna be seventy. Any plans on retiring,
Speaker 1: You're gonna go to Martha's vinion and just watch the
Speaker 1: waves or are you enjoying what you're doing too much? Enjoying?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's the right word, but I I
Speaker 1: um satisfy bye bye. By contributing and being productive and
Speaker 1: feeling like making a difference, I think that's right. I
Speaker 1: don't forget. I grew up in Massachusetts at a time
Speaker 1: when a fair heared son of Massachusetts was in the
Speaker 1: White House, and I remember as if it was yesterday,
Speaker 1: President Kennedy exhorting all of us give back to the country.
Speaker 1: Public service is a noble undertaking. Everybody can make a difference.
Speaker 1: Government is not a bad word. And um, I try
Speaker 1: and live out that creed, I guess you would say
Speaker 1: every day. So you've been listening to Master's in Business
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. If people want to read more of
Speaker 1: your work, I know you have a book that came
Speaker 1: out um some time ago called Valuing the Life. You
Speaker 1: occasionally published. Where where can people find um your writing?
Speaker 1: My latest book? Who gets what? Public Affairs press? And
Speaker 1: you know my personal supply of that book is virtually inexhaustible,
Speaker 1: But I think people can go on Amazon and get
Speaker 1: it all right? Thank you? So much, Ken Feinberg for
Speaker 1: for coming by today. If you enjoy this conversation, be
Speaker 1: sure and continue listening. We let the tapes roll and
Speaker 1: continue chatting. Uh. Check out my daily column on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: View dot com or follow me on Twitter at Rid Halts.
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Masters in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Okay, welcome to the podcast portion of our show.
Speaker 1: And and Ken, in case I forget to say this,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing this. This is I
Speaker 1: find this absolutely fascinating. Listeners always make fun of me
Speaker 1: for using that word, but really, I've watched you, as
Speaker 1: have most of America, watched you operate in the public
Speaker 1: sphere in real time under unthinkable conditions. And I remember
Speaker 1: seeing one of the first nine eleven hearings with people
Speaker 1: shaking their fist and yawned at you. I just remember thinking, man,
Speaker 1: that looks like a terrible, terrible job. I wonder what
Speaker 1: the hell they're paying him, And the answer is it's
Speaker 1: a terrible job and they're paying him nothing. Although you're
Speaker 1: really saying it's not such a terrible job because you're
Speaker 1: giving back and you're doing something patriotic to help the country,
Speaker 1: heal and move on. That's right. And also, frankly, are
Speaker 1: you're helping people in grief. You can never ever get
Speaker 1: angry at people. I mean, what they are going through horrifect,
Speaker 1: that's unthinkable, and they have every right to vent about life.
Speaker 1: Sun fairness, you are the target of this. Brace yourself
Speaker 1: before you take on the assignment. You know what's going
Speaker 1: to develop, and um, you just prepare yourself. So you
Speaker 1: said it was debilitating earlier, But I've also heard that
Speaker 1: you have a couple of ways of coping with this,
Speaker 1: not the least of which is long drives with music playing.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about that. I Um, during
Speaker 1: the day, when you're dealing with these horrible tragedies, you're
Speaker 1: witnessing first hen the worst in civilization, I mean the worst.
Speaker 1: Then at night you go to a symphony concert, or
Speaker 1: you go sit at the opera, or you listen to
Speaker 1: chamber music, and it's the height of civilization. So you
Speaker 1: try and measure and balance the horror with something that
Speaker 1: will help ease your pain and ease your mind. When
Speaker 1: you're confronting during the day, story after story, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: believe these stories. Well, what we've seen and what we've
Speaker 1: heard and those of us who especially here in New York,
Speaker 1: but obviously Boston Marathon was a similar situation. It's just
Speaker 1: human tragedy rit large. There's no other way to to
Speaker 1: describe it. Mr Feinberg, I'm twenty four years old. I
Speaker 1: lost my husband. He was a fireman, and he left
Speaker 1: me with our two children, six and four. Now you're
Speaker 1: going to give me from the nine eleven fund three
Speaker 1: million dollars. I want it in thirty days. Well, Mrs Jones,
Speaker 1: why do you need the money in thirty days? We
Speaker 1: have to go to the treasury. They have to do
Speaker 1: their due diligence, The bureaucracy has to cut a check.
Speaker 1: It might be ninety days, thirty days. I said, why,
Speaker 1: why do you need the money so quickly? Why? I'll
Speaker 1: tell you why, Mr Fineberg. I have terminal cancer. I
Speaker 1: have ten weeks to live. My husband was going to
Speaker 1: survive me and take care of our two little ones.
Speaker 1: Now they're going to be orphans. I have got to
Speaker 1: get this money while I have my faculties and set
Speaker 1: up a trust so that they'll be taken care of.
Speaker 1: We accelerated the money, Barry and that was a true story.
Speaker 1: That wasn't she wasn't blown, accelerated the money, and eight
Speaker 1: weeks later she died. After the money was paid, the
Speaker 1: trust was set up, and these two kids are taken
Speaker 1: care of, at the very least their college and everything else.
Speaker 1: That's unbelie That istbilitating, let me tell you. And yet
Speaker 1: as horrific as that sounds, there has to be an
Speaker 1: incredible satisfaction that someone in such desperate need comes to
Speaker 1: you and you're able to do something to resolve it
Speaker 1: favorably too. I don't want to say to their satisfaction,
Speaker 1: but to take care of that situation under those circumstances, Well,
Speaker 1: you're right that you're not going to satisfy the victims,
Speaker 1: and there is no there is no filling that whole.
Speaker 1: All you could do is try and ease the suffering
Speaker 1: a lot. But it is satisfying to know that you
Speaker 1: have run a program, administered a program that has succeeded
Speaker 1: the way that Congress or the President of the United States,
Speaker 1: are a judge or a governor or a mayor wanted
Speaker 1: that program administered. That is very satisfying to know that
Speaker 1: the Attorney General of the United States and President Bush
Speaker 1: can we want you to do this and that. Afterward
Speaker 1: they say, job well done. Yeah, that is very satisfied.
Speaker 1: And you've probably handed out more money than just about
Speaker 1: anybody else. Uh, certainly more of other people's money than
Speaker 1: anybody else in the history if you ever sat down
Speaker 1: and figured out the total amount of checks that dispersed.
Speaker 1: But you're right, you're right. Eleven BP, there's fourteen add
Speaker 1: everything else up. You're not that far away from eighteen
Speaker 1: billion dollars or so. I've become. I tell people, I've
Speaker 1: become a nationally known philanthropist with other people's money. It's
Speaker 1: sort of an interesting gig. Actually it's not. I don't
Speaker 1: know if philanthropy is the right word, but essentially you're
Speaker 1: dispersing money, for lack of a better word, A lot
Speaker 1: of this is charitable deductions. All the money you mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier for the Boston Marathon bombing, and Sandy Hook and
Speaker 1: Aurora and and Virginia Tech. Every time there's a problem,
Speaker 1: there's a huge outpouring of support. You're the philanthropist than
Speaker 1: chief for the United States. Well, um, you're don't. Forget
Speaker 1: of all these programs, the one that is the most unique.
Speaker 1: They're all unique, but the one that's really unique is
Speaker 1: the nine eleven victim Compensation fund. That fund used public money,
Speaker 1: public money, not airline money, not World Trade ceremoney, public money.
Speaker 1: And I remember some of the emails I received, Dear
Speaker 1: Mr Finberg, my son died in Oklahoma City? Where's my check?
Speaker 1: How about the people who are the Mr Finberg? I
Speaker 1: don't get it. My daughter died in the basement of
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center in the original nine attacks committed
Speaker 1: by the very same type of people. Were as my check?
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just terrorism, Dear Mr Finberg. Last year
Speaker 1: my wife save three little girls from drowning in the
Speaker 1: Mississippi River, and then she drowned a heroin were is
Speaker 1: my check? You better be careful about setting up special
Speaker 1: programs for just certain people. That nine eleven fund was
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. Absolutely, don't ever do it again.
Speaker 1: It was a one off, of one of a kind,
Speaker 1: of one of a kind. That's right, That's just amazing.
Speaker 1: So so what do you say to someone whose family
Speaker 1: member died in the World Trade Center attack? This is Jones.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, asked Congress, why you're not eligible? I
Speaker 1: can't change the law. The law is the law. I
Speaker 1: have no discretion to add people from nine three or
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City or or a drowning victim. I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I can't. And your beef justifiable criticism is with the
Speaker 1: Congress of the United States. They enacted the law, so
Speaker 1: you threw them under the bus, and hey, I don't
Speaker 1: want to because she's she's she's a very good issue. Now,
Speaker 1: I must say, the nine eleven attack, that was something
Speaker 1: unique in a American history. I think that's rivaled only
Speaker 1: by the Civil War Harbor and maybe the assassination of
Speaker 1: President Kennedy. That's it. That's it. That's sue generous and um.
Speaker 1: But still I tell people all the time nine eleven,
Speaker 1: don't ever replicate that fund. That was using taxpayer money.
Speaker 1: So so, speaking of nine eleven and using taxpayer money,
Speaker 1: we subsequent we subsequently learned a decade later that a
Speaker 1: lot of the first responders who showed up at the
Speaker 1: World Trade Center subsequently became very very ill, all sorts
Speaker 1: of respiratory diseases and cancers and god knows what. The
Speaker 1: nine eleven fund was then extended with an additional set
Speaker 1: of funding for these first responders. Tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about that. You weren't involved in that. That's well,
Speaker 1: that's an offshoot of the nine eleven fund. In other words,
Speaker 1: elementary fanness. I can see that people got paid for
Speaker 1: those very diseases back then, but now they have manifested
Speaker 1: for more people. So the only reason they weren't paid
Speaker 1: back then is they hadn't become ill yet now they're ill.
Speaker 1: So if you paid them, then you should pay him now.
Speaker 1: I can understand that argument, I guess, and pretty that's
Speaker 1: really that's it. After that, you don't ever want to
Speaker 1: see anything like this again, I I hopefully, I don't
Speaker 1: think you want the United the taxpayer to be funding
Speaker 1: compensation for certain victims and not others. Bad things happened
Speaker 1: to good people every day in this kind. There's no
Speaker 1: nine eleven fund. And I I am dubious about the
Speaker 1: wisdom of creating special taxpayer funded programs. We didn't just
Speaker 1: one for certain people. We didn't do one after Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 1: did we? Well, what happened following the Pearl Harbor. Didn't
Speaker 1: do one after the Boston Marathon. That was all private money,
Speaker 1: all private money. That's that's quite fascinating. So so tell
Speaker 1: us a little something about your background that most people
Speaker 1: don't know anything about We know you as the special Um,
Speaker 1: special mediator, special master. What don't people know about? Ken
Speaker 1: findber If people want to understand my philosophy and all
Speaker 1: of this, they have to understand growing up in the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties and sixties in Brockton, Massachusetts, when President Kennedy
Speaker 1: was in the White House, a much more optimistic time.
Speaker 1: He's promoting public service, ask not what you can what
Speaker 1: your country can do for you, the Peace Corps and
Speaker 1: UM giving back to the country, and that every individual
Speaker 1: can make a difference. And that resonated with me. It
Speaker 1: also resonated with me. I grew up in a tight,
Speaker 1: loving Jewish family in Brockton when everybody was much more
Speaker 1: optimistic about the future and and and and pulling yourself
Speaker 1: up and moving forward. My grandparents were immigrants and UM.
Speaker 1: It just it helped mold my my outlook. So post
Speaker 1: World War two, people are fairly optimistic. But let me
Speaker 1: push back a little bit from the history books. In
Speaker 1: the fifties, the sort of democles hungover the United States
Speaker 1: and the Soviet Union. There was the constant threat of
Speaker 1: of nuclear annihilation. In the sixties, it felt like the
Speaker 1: entire social fabric of the nation unwounds. And then the
Speaker 1: seventies was a period of long it was it was
Speaker 1: high gas prices and inflation and recession and of even
Speaker 1: worse polyester and disco. So that was a terrible era.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until the eighties and nineties again the things
Speaker 1: seemed to turn. How negative is that view of history
Speaker 1: or how nostal, Jake are you being in your view
Speaker 1: of history? What what we're in We're in lay the
Speaker 1: truth for for what those eras were, like maybe somewhere
Speaker 1: in between. I'm talking about nine fifty seven until the
Speaker 1: Vietnam build up around and during that eight year period
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager and then got older in
Speaker 1: my early twenties. Um, that that was the period where
Speaker 1: I was most influenced by optimism. Vietnam and the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights movement changed a lot of that. You're absolutely right, Um,
Speaker 1: but it had an impact so so essentially deep down
Speaker 1: inside you're an optimistic guy, right. You grew up in
Speaker 1: that post World War two era where a can do
Speaker 1: spirit affected the country. Brockton, Massachusetts and urban Center. Over
Speaker 1: half these shoes worn by Union soldiers in the Civil
Speaker 1: War manufactured in Brockton and um a great industrial mecca.
Speaker 1: Really it was. And when I was growing up, it
Speaker 1: was still a town where imports and Chinese imports and
Speaker 1: Italian imports of shoes, those were that was the next
Speaker 1: day or the next year, or the next month or
Speaker 1: the next hand. Shut the factors down. That's trying and
Speaker 1: and it was just a great time to be a youngster,
Speaker 1: A great time to be a youngster. Let me guess
Speaker 1: you're a Red Sox fan. Well, I was a Red
Speaker 1: Sox fan for many years now. Of course I've lived
Speaker 1: in Washington for thirty five years, and my my children
Speaker 1: grew up as Baltimore Oriole fans, redskin fans, Wizards caps
Speaker 1: so um. It's hard to maintain in New England allegiance.
Speaker 1: When your kids are praising the local schools social teams,
Speaker 1: the head of the Redskins comes to you and says, hey,
Speaker 1: we have an issue with this naming thing. How do
Speaker 1: you resolve the team name? Resolved the team name? For
Speaker 1: goodness sakes, it bothers people. It's building up. It cantinues
Speaker 1: to build up. If that many people and that many
Speaker 1: critics find a name as being a problem, change the name.
Speaker 1: What is the what is the big deal? I am
Speaker 1: not especially a politically correct guy, but it's hard to
Speaker 1: look at redskins and not say, gee, that's a little
Speaker 1: bit offensive. You know. I look, it's not my team.
Speaker 1: I'm just if I were. You asked if I'm advising
Speaker 1: him for Pizze says, you'll make a fortune the last week.
Speaker 1: All that merchandise is out there for the last week,
Speaker 1: it'll be every shelf will be sold out, and then
Speaker 1: all the new stuff. So just from a business perspective,
Speaker 1: they should change the name. That. That's something I bet
Speaker 1: we've never heard heard said before. Um so you mentioned
Speaker 1: briefly working with Ted Kennedy, an early mentor of yours.
Speaker 1: Who else was as well as jfk H philosophically, But
Speaker 1: who else was a mentor of yours early in your career?
Speaker 1: Have been four that I've written about. Ted Kennedy was
Speaker 1: one master legislator, um unrivaled I think as an effective
Speaker 1: US Senator and getting things done. I would say the
Speaker 1: other three people that have really influenced my thinking Judge
Speaker 1: Jack Weinstein, federal judge here in the in Brooklyn Southern District,
Speaker 1: New York Eastern Eastern District, that still sitting ninety four
Speaker 1: years old. A giant and sharp as attacked, sharp as attack.
Speaker 1: He was the fellow the judge who put me to
Speaker 1: work on Agent Orange and made my career. And Judge
Speaker 1: Weinstein's had a trement. I still wouldn't think of resolving
Speaker 1: an issue without chatting with Judge Weinstein. Still talk to
Speaker 1: all the time. Justice Brier, Stephen Brier, very close to me,
Speaker 1: just has a book out, has been doing the circuit. Later,
Speaker 1: Justice Brian and I worked together as aids to ended
Speaker 1: to Kennedy. Really next door to one another. We sat
Speaker 1: in the same room and we're very close friends. And
Speaker 1: Justice Bryan has had a profound impact on my outlooking,
Speaker 1: on my career. And finally, a Professor Robert Potofsky, I
Speaker 1: know the name of nationally recognized anti trust expert who
Speaker 1: taught me and I was his intern and school and
Speaker 1: then he went on to head up the FTC. He's
Speaker 1: still alive living in Washington. And Professor Potofsky got me
Speaker 1: into a teaching career. Teach, and those are the people
Speaker 1: that really influenced my outlook. That's a heck of a
Speaker 1: good list right there. Well, everybody needs mentors. You have
Speaker 1: mentors for sure. Absolutely. My mentors don't sit on the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court or are one of the great senators. But
Speaker 1: I have some people who have influenced me over the years. Um,
Speaker 1: that are pretty interesting. Your father and mother. I grew
Speaker 1: up in Brockton in a very loving family with my
Speaker 1: brother and sister, and we knew that no matter what
Speaker 1: happened during the day at school or at work or whatever,
Speaker 1: we would always come home and a very loving mother
Speaker 1: and father would be waiting to nurture, to counsel, to guide,
Speaker 1: to love, and believe me, that had a huge impact
Speaker 1: on the children. I can imagine. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things that are impossible to replicate, and people look at
Speaker 1: that as a core issue in in the direction the
Speaker 1: country is going. The current generation, so your kids are
Speaker 1: now old enough to have kids of their own, that
Speaker 1: generation seems to be very different than the parents you
Speaker 1: and I grew up with. Their now helicopter parents who
Speaker 1: do everything from the kid for the kids, from you know,
Speaker 1: cradle to until they're married. It's it's a very different
Speaker 1: upbringing than I think my generation or your generation experience. Yes,
Speaker 1: but you hope that you instill values in your children
Speaker 1: that a time honored. No matter what the material change
Speaker 1: or the environmental change, the pace of life, you hope
Speaker 1: that the core values about love and respect and and
Speaker 1: reputation and judgment stay with them. Hope you could do
Speaker 1: much worse than that. Um So we mentioned the big
Speaker 1: four mentors of yours philosophically, who are the people who
Speaker 1: influenced your your outlook? Of those those people, Judge Weinstein
Speaker 1: are very activist. Judge believes that the courts should be
Speaker 1: there to help the disenfranchised and the and the and
Speaker 1: the less well off. Senator Kennedy, who of course was
Speaker 1: a champion of liberal causes and it was determined to
Speaker 1: help the little man. HM. Justice Bryan, who's consistently one
Speaker 1: of the four justices on the Court that um it
Speaker 1: feels very strongly about issues like gay marriage and affirmative
Speaker 1: action and things like that civil it's justice. So those
Speaker 1: are the people that influence you. So let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about authors who you've written a couple of books.
Speaker 1: Who are some of your favorite authors. What are some
Speaker 1: of the books that you've enjoyed over the years, whether
Speaker 1: they relate to law or or elsewhere. Ernest Hemingway, Really,
Speaker 1: I mean Ernest hemmy Way. They say that he may
Speaker 1: have he may be in decline today in terms of
Speaker 1: some of the major authors. Is revisionist. I don't know
Speaker 1: about that. I think Henyways tremendous. We were in Key
Speaker 1: West not too long ago when we got to tour
Speaker 1: the Hemingway House, which was quite fast, great and people
Speaker 1: don't understand a um a massive collection of Hemming Hemingway
Speaker 1: memorabilia and drafts. Said in the Kennedy Library in Boston,
Speaker 1: the JFK like really um. Hemingway's children, I guess were
Speaker 1: very close to Jacquelin Kennedy Onassis, and Jacqueline Kennedy when
Speaker 1: she was alive, suggested that an appropriate place to lodge
Speaker 1: those house those materials. And now the JFK Library in
Speaker 1: Boston is a key depository of Hemyway memorabilia. Who else, well,
Speaker 1: the Great gats Be. Everybody reads to kill a Mark
Speaker 1: and where everybody reads. I don't get a chance really
Speaker 1: to read much fiction. How about nonfiction fiction? I'm you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's on the run. So it's the New York
Speaker 1: Times every day, in the Washington Post, it's the New Yorker,
Speaker 1: It's the New York Review of Books, you don't really get.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't get now in the summer, I
Speaker 1: just finished reading Evan Thomas's book on Richard Nixon. Fabulous book.
Speaker 1: I mean Richard Nixon. I don't want to say that
Speaker 1: Evan Thomas is a revisionist who who um is sympathetic
Speaker 1: to Nixon. But by laying out the story you can't
Speaker 1: help but UM see a side of Nixon that otherwise
Speaker 1: people forget because of Watergate and everything. Well, the post
Speaker 1: Watergate image almost becomes a caricature and you lose sight
Speaker 1: of the real man underneath that. That happens in those
Speaker 1: sort of situations, and you don't have to be revisionists.
Speaker 1: You just have to show the full picture, and I
Speaker 1: think Thomas does that. Then I read on a lark,
Speaker 1: I read the History of the Nile River. Really, I
Speaker 1: just picked it up at a local bookstore on Martha's Vineyard.
Speaker 1: The history of the Nile going back to the ancient
Speaker 1: Egypt right up to the present time. That's the history
Speaker 1: of civilization. That is the history of civilization going back
Speaker 1: thousands of years, and the importance of that river in
Speaker 1: world history. And um, I found that to be interested.
Speaker 1: So I get sometime but um uh, it's cliche. But
Speaker 1: I'm too busy. It's I can't remember the last piece
Speaker 1: of fiction I read, and I end up really plowing through,
Speaker 1: not nearly as much nonfiction as I like. But I
Speaker 1: try and go through a book or two a month
Speaker 1: if i'm if I'm lucky. But I'm on a train
Speaker 1: every day, so that's where I get to do it. Now.
Speaker 1: My friend, my friend Mark Byros is a big believer
Speaker 1: in in these um oral books. He must read a
Speaker 1: book a week on tape. He's read everything on tape,
Speaker 1: goes to work on tape, coming home on tape at
Speaker 1: night on tape, on vacation on tape, and takes airplane
Speaker 1: trips on tape. And he says, oh, I read that.
Speaker 1: I read that. I read All the Light You Cannot
Speaker 1: See and The Girl on the Train and all these
Speaker 1: best sellers. He listen him and not this listening isn't
Speaker 1: the same as reading. I have people tell me, you know,
Speaker 1: I I listened to your podcast. I'm on the treadmill,
Speaker 1: or I'm taking the train back and forth to work,
Speaker 1: or I go out biking. So it's a different experience
Speaker 1: hearing it than reading it. I like reading when I can,
Speaker 1: but how often do you get the three or four
Speaker 1: uninterrupted hours you need? And I find that, um, if
Speaker 1: I have a moment of where I'm not meeting with
Speaker 1: somebody or doing it, I'm so tied up thinking about
Speaker 1: my work that it's hard to focus on fiction or
Speaker 1: non fiction or anything else because you're so occupied with
Speaker 1: what should that person receive or should that person be
Speaker 1: eligible or how much? And you take it home with you.
Speaker 1: You strike me as someone if you would have been
Speaker 1: born in a just a few the next generation, you
Speaker 1: would be a guy doing meditation on a regular basis
Speaker 1: and a cross legged somewhere and thinking deep thoughts. Um.
Speaker 1: You think constantly about what you learn and what I
Speaker 1: do is that public policy involves real people, live people
Speaker 1: that have needs. And when you're thinking about whether it
Speaker 1: a close down the government or you're thinking about um
Speaker 1: uh filibuster rain a health bill, you know you better
Speaker 1: step back that there are real people in ramifications. There
Speaker 1: are ramifications. When I do the nine eleven or BP
Speaker 1: or any one of these program Boston Marathon, Aurora, Sandy Hook,
Speaker 1: Sandy Hook, twenty four first graders murdered. Just unbelievable. Unbelievable,
Speaker 1: it's unthankful, it's unconscionable. And and here I am meeting
Speaker 1: with families who lost first grades, and I'm just telling them.
Speaker 1: What can you possibly say? You just sit there and
Speaker 1: listen to them. UM vent about life, sun Fannus. That's
Speaker 1: what it's all about, Mr Fineberg. I lost my first
Speaker 1: my first grade child. There is no God, No God
Speaker 1: would allow such a thing. I will never again step
Speaker 1: foot in a church or a synagogue. It can't be
Speaker 1: that this God that would allow this. And you have
Speaker 1: no answer none. You just listen that that depth of grief.
Speaker 1: Supposedly the psychologist will say, losing a child worse than
Speaker 1: losing a husband or a wife or a parent. It's
Speaker 1: the worst pain a human can feel. And you hope
Speaker 1: when you do what I do, you hope you will
Speaker 1: not make a mistake. Every time I do one of
Speaker 1: these programs to compensate innocent people, I make a mistake.
Speaker 1: You can't help it. You can't help it. I remember
Speaker 1: an eighty three year old man came to see me
Speaker 1: after nine eleven, Mr Fineberg, crying. He was crying, Mr Finberg,
Speaker 1: Guy lost my son at the Pentagon when the plane hit.
Speaker 1: He got out, he escaped, but he thought that his sister,
Speaker 1: who also worked at the Pentagon, was trapped, so he
Speaker 1: went back in to look for her. She had escaped
Speaker 1: through a side door. He died looking for now, Mr Finberg,
Speaker 1: my life is over. I'm burying a son. A father
Speaker 1: should never bury a son. And I looked at this
Speaker 1: man crying, and I can't believe it. I said to him,
Speaker 1: Mr Jones, this is terrible what happened to your son.
Speaker 1: I know how you feel. H He looked at me,
Speaker 1: nice quiet, Mr Finberg. I have some advice for you.
Speaker 1: You have a tough job. I don't envy you. Don't
Speaker 1: ever tell somebody like me that you know how I feel.
Speaker 1: You have no idea how I feel. And it sounds
Speaker 1: pretentious and condescending. I wouldn't do that. I will never
Speaker 1: do that. I will never make that mistake again. And
Speaker 1: you learn every time about mistakes and trying to avoid them.
Speaker 1: See my You know, my wife says the difference between
Speaker 1: men and women is women hear something and they want
Speaker 1: to listen. Men here it and like, all right, what
Speaker 1: do I have to do to fix this? My first
Speaker 1: response when you're telling that is, you know, to honor
Speaker 1: what your son tried to do in saving his sister
Speaker 1: is you have to keep going for the benefit of
Speaker 1: your daughter. And I don't know if that's the right
Speaker 1: thing to say, because I know that they're not looking
Speaker 1: for your advice, They're just looking for an year. Be
Speaker 1: careful about that type of response. That's my wife's advice.
Speaker 1: Shut up and listen, don't offer advice, empathize. I wish
Speaker 1: I could change this, I can't, and that's it. That's
Speaker 1: really not easy to do. And what I've learned over
Speaker 1: the years, the less you say two people in grief,
Speaker 1: because you'll be fueling this thing to say the least. Um,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at what else. So we went
Speaker 1: through books. I only I know. I only have you
Speaker 1: for another eight minutes. So let's go through some of
Speaker 1: my favorite questions I asked for my last four questions
Speaker 1: I asked all my guests. So you entered the legal
Speaker 1: industry almost forty years ago. What has changed in the industry.
Speaker 1: What is the most significant shift in that field? I
Speaker 1: think the legal industry hasn't changed that much, except there
Speaker 1: are too many lawyers. I mean, we're reading about this
Speaker 1: all the time. These lawyers, you know, we're churning out
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of lawyers every year, and we're over lawyered.
Speaker 1: So I I advise young people all the time, don't
Speaker 1: go to law school unless you really want to be
Speaker 1: a lawyer and you want to practice law. Don't go
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure what I want to do. That's
Speaker 1: a pretty expensive ambivalence, I must say, an expensive ambivalence.
Speaker 1: I want to go to law school. I want to
Speaker 1: go to a very good law school, and I want
Speaker 1: to do very well at law school. Otherwise, good luck.
Speaker 1: It's a very competitive world out there, and you better
Speaker 1: think twice the stats. And these are old already, But
Speaker 1: seven years after graduation, law school gradutions aren't practicing. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's changed in the past twenty years,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it could could very well. They just aren't
Speaker 1: that many legal jobs out there. And wait till we
Speaker 1: start out sourcing more and more of it to India.
Speaker 1: Well that's right. And now you go online and you
Speaker 1: see legal dot Com and Zoom and all of this
Speaker 1: and legal Zoom and we can give you a will
Speaker 1: and we can do a simple divorce and blah blah,
Speaker 1: it won't cost you very much. And it's all online.
Speaker 1: And I mean the world has changed software, software is
Speaker 1: changing that. So what do you see as the next
Speaker 1: major shifts in that profession? Well, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: mean I do think there's a trend that three years
Speaker 1: of law school, the third year should be more clinical,
Speaker 1: actual experience out in the field, practicing at the d
Speaker 1: a's office, a legal aid, doing some me the Asian
Speaker 1: work as a student, but getting out there and getting
Speaker 1: some real world experience. There may be a trend towards
Speaker 1: making three years of law school two years. Now. There
Speaker 1: are some law schools now like Brooklyn here dean Nick Aller,
Speaker 1: very very um creative guy who's jamming three years of
Speaker 1: law school credit into two years and inviting students who
Speaker 1: want to get out of law school and two years
Speaker 1: to work hard, take the same number of credits, but
Speaker 1: get out earlier, stop working. So we'll watch and see
Speaker 1: how this develops over the next two years. Quite fascinating. So, um,
Speaker 1: what advice would you give to a millennial or someone
Speaker 1: just getting out of school today at the beginning of
Speaker 1: their career, and I mean law school graduates, college graduates,
Speaker 1: what advice would you give to kids like that? Look,
Speaker 1: get yourself a job that you really enjoy, enjoy getting
Speaker 1: up on Monday morning and going to work. That's your
Speaker 1: Yet you're that's the test, smile post. If you hate Mondays,
Speaker 1: you're doing the wrong right and don't worry too much
Speaker 1: about what you're going to be doing. Three years, four years,
Speaker 1: five years, five years ago, Barry Ridholts didn't see himself
Speaker 1: doing this fabulous show. I actually did, but that's a
Speaker 1: whole different story. But for the most but it wasn't real.
Speaker 1: It was aspirational and actually it wasn't this show. Five
Speaker 1: years ago, I was doing television and radio, but not
Speaker 1: my own show. I always thought, Hey, I'm I'm a guest,
Speaker 1: I'm not a host. What the heck do I know
Speaker 1: about hosting a radio show? So actually, you're you're right.
Speaker 1: I had no idea this, you know, in my day job,
Speaker 1: so we run an asset management shop and we're always
Speaker 1: talking to people about don't think about the day to
Speaker 1: day noise in the market. Think about when you're gonna
Speaker 1: retire in twenty or thirty years, what do you need
Speaker 1: to live on? What sort of we have to walk
Speaker 1: people through and their software that helps us do this,
Speaker 1: but we walk through people through prog actions ten, twenty
Speaker 1: thirty years out, and you're saying, don't worry so much
Speaker 1: about forty years from now. You don't know what next
Speaker 1: year is gonna break. Live in the moment a little more,
Speaker 1: enjoy what you have today. And boy, have I seen
Speaker 1: that in my work. For sure? People went to work
Speaker 1: on nine eleven. They never perfunctory goodbyes to husbands and
Speaker 1: wives and brothers and sisters. I'll meet you for dinner,
Speaker 1: I'll beach, I'll be home earlier. There never saw him again,
Speaker 1: incinerated dust, and um, you know, you know, my wife
Speaker 1: and I have a routine every time we fly. I
Speaker 1: fly and we go through the same process of Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm in C three B. They're shutting the cabin door.
Speaker 1: I love you, talk to you later, call me as
Speaker 1: soon as you're down, and so all right, we'll landed
Speaker 1: in Miami, landed in because you And that's only since
Speaker 1: nine eleven that routine developed, because you never know when
Speaker 1: a flight is your last flight. You could write a
Speaker 1: book other people could as well, on how nine eleven, thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago has influenced the way we live today,
Speaker 1: the way we think, the way we act. I would
Speaker 1: have thought after nine eleven, that over a relatively brief
Speaker 1: period of time, nine eleven would be history, and that
Speaker 1: the American people wouldn't stand for these lines at airports
Speaker 1: going through. It turns out the American people, I think,
Speaker 1: have made um airports security a regular fixture of their lives.
Speaker 1: They expected, they don't want it modified. And I'm surprised
Speaker 1: at that. You know, the American people usually are very forgetful,
Speaker 1: but on something like nine eleven, the impacts lasted much
Speaker 1: longer than I thought, to say the least. And and
Speaker 1: my final question, because I promised to get you out
Speaker 1: of here at five thirty, what do you know today
Speaker 1: about your practice that you wish you knew forty years
Speaker 1: ago when you began. Oh, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: That's a very interesting question. I Um. What I know
Speaker 1: today is more than forty years ago. Is that you
Speaker 1: build a sense of trust and credibility on the pot
Speaker 1: of people, not by marketing and not by branding and
Speaker 1: not by advertising, by doing and experience. I'm a firm
Speaker 1: believer that talent will out and that if you're a
Speaker 1: good lawyer, or a good doctor, or a good interviewer.
Speaker 1: On Bloomberg TV, a Bloomberg Radio, a Bloomberg podcast, that
Speaker 1: it generates itself. It it provides you not only a
Speaker 1: sense of satisfaction, it does me in my practice, but
Speaker 1: that don't worry too much about tomorrow or the next day. Um,
Speaker 1: your experience and your credibility enhances tomorrow and the next day.
Speaker 1: It'll worry about the substance. The branding will take care of.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Certainly in your case, that's the case. Please,
Speaker 1: can I if I can call you can At this point,
Speaker 1: after an hour and a half, I can't begin to
Speaker 1: thank you enough for this. This has been absolutely delightful. I've,
Speaker 1: like I said earlier, I followed your course of your
Speaker 1: career as pretty much everyone in America has. And um,
Speaker 1: I hope we asked you some questions that we're a
Speaker 1: little different than you used to and I hope, I hope,
Speaker 1: I know I've learned a lot of fascinating things about
Speaker 1: you have And let me tell you you have a
Speaker 1: very civilized approach to this because your show and the
Speaker 1: reason I was attracted to it, it's not a six
Speaker 1: minute sound bite, it's not eight minutes. How many quick
Speaker 1: points can you make? You flesh it out? You give
Speaker 1: everybody the opportunity. You get into a dialogue and it's
Speaker 1: very substantive, and I think you're performing a valuable public service.
Speaker 1: So thank you. Well, well on behalf of the American public.
Speaker 1: Let me say thank you for your service. Um, we've
Speaker 1: been speaking with Special Master Ken Feinberg. Uh. What's the
Speaker 1: name of your firm? Ken? The the law You're ready
Speaker 1: for this, The Law Offices of Kenneth A. Feinberg. Alright,
Speaker 1: there you go that that's uh, the Law Offices of
Speaker 1: Kenneth R. Feinberg. I wanna thank my recording engineer, Reggie,
Speaker 1: my producer, uh, Charles Volmer, and my head of research, h.
Speaker 1: Michael bat Nick. Be sure and check out all of
Speaker 1: our other podcasts. Just look up an Inch or down
Speaker 1: an Inch on Apple iTunes. You've been listening to Masters
Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio.