Irish Times Profiles Timothy Feighery

“My parents felt that in the late 1970s in Ireland, there just weren’t the opportunities for us that we would have in the United States and so we moved back to the New York suburb of Carmel and my father ran a pub called Fiddler’s Green,” Tim told the Times.
 
Following law school at Fordham University in New York, Tim worked with a major law firm before joining the UN to work on the Commission established to process claims for compensation arising out of Iraq’s 1990 invasion and occupation of Kuwait.
 
“The bar my father ran was a very local bar in suburban New York and most of the regulars were blue collar workers, policemen and firemen,” said Tim. “I was very motivated to come back to the US to help out in some way” after the 9/11 attacks. He returned from Geneva to act as a deputy special master for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001 to assist in the evaluation of claims for compensation made by victims of the 9/11 attacks.
 
After that, he joined the Legal Adviser’s Office in the State Department, where he represented the United States in international arbitration. In 2011, Tim was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve as Chairman of the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States. The FCSC is a quasi-judicial, independent agency within the Justice Department that adjudicates the claims of US nationals against foreign governments under programs established by Congress or referred by the State Department. 
 
“President Obama and the first lady were incredibly gracious people, wonderful people,” Tim told the Times. “I did think it was ironic, there we were, two men with connections to Offaly!”

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