Burt Neuborne

Burt Neuborne is an American lawyer, who is the Norman Dorsen Professor of Civil Liberties at New York University School of Law and the founding legal director of the Brennan Center for Justice.

Neuborne was born in the Bronx, New York, and raised in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Neuborne served as national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1981 to 1986, special counsel to the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1990 to 1996, and as a member of the New York City Human Rights Commission from 1988 to 1992. From 1995 to 2007, he directed the legal program of the Brennan Center for Justice.

Neuborne has been called a defender of unpopular causes. He defended Air Force pilots who refused to bomb Cambodia in the Vietnam War, securing a temporary injunction from a district court judge against the bombing. Neuborne also represented the Socialist Labor Party's effort to be on the ballot, and legal-aid lawyers suing the government. He has also testified before Congress on behalf of the tobacco industry.

After the death of his daughter, Lauren, Neuborne fell into a depression. He was introduced to the plaintiffs of a massive Holocaust Reparations case and in 1998 Neuborne won a $1.25 billion settlement for Jewish Holocaust survivors in a lawsuit against Swiss banks who helped the Nazis steal money from Jewish victims. After undertaking the initial litigation pro bono, Neuborne gave notice that he intended to be paid for his work on the settlement. He applied for $4.1 million in fees for "8,000 hours over the past seven years" of work he did in the settlement against the banks. Some Holocaust survivor organizations in the United States filed an objection to Neuborne's claim. The editorial board of The New York Times admonished Neuborne, stating, "The dollar amounts are troubling and so are the slipshod hourly records that Mr. Neuborne submitted," and criticizing his $700 hourly rate as "unseemly" and more suited to corporate clients. The Times also criticized the survivors for expecting "arduous, complicated legal work without pay." When asked about the controversy, Neuborne said, "At the end of my career, to have to listen to people say, 'You lied to us, you cheated, you did this to us!'...it hurts, especially since they are survivors."

Neuborne was acquitted by professional review boards and judges involved in the case itself. According to Neuborne, he never intended to donate the time he spent administering the case settlement and, indeed, pursuant to his other responsibilities, could not have.

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