David Feige

David Feige is an American lawyer legal commentator and author He is the author of the memoir Indefensible One Lawyers Journey into the Inferno of American Justice and cocreator of the TNT legal drama Raising the Bar both of which centre on the life of the public defender He is also the cofounder along with his wife Robin Steinberg and board chair of The Bronx Freedom Fund a charitable bail organisation in New York State In 2016 he won the Albert Maysles New Documentary Director Award for Untouchable a documentary feature he wrote produced and directed The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival Feige was raised in Madison Wisconsin His mother was a social worker and his father was an economics professor Feige pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago After law school Feige declined an offer to work as an associate at Dewey Ballantine and accepted an offer to work as a public defender in New York City He is Jewish Feige began his legal career as a staff attorney at the Criminal Defence Division of the Legal Aid Society and held positions at the Civilian Complaint Review Board of New York City and the Neighbourhood Defender Service of Harlem before becoming in 1997 one of the founding members of The Bronx Defenders In 1999 Feige was promoted to trial chief In March 2001 he filed the first motion for a doubleblind sequential lineup in People v Leo Franco spawning a series of legal challenges to eyewitness identification procedures around the country Feige is the author of the 2006 book Indefensible One Lawyers Journey into the Inferno of American Justice which recounts his experiences as a public defender in The Bronx New York City Feige is cocreator with Steven Bochco who had read Indefensible of the TV series Raising the Bar which debuted on TNT September 1 2008 to the highest ratings for a pilot episode in the history of adsupported cable television It was Feiges first attempt at screenwriting The action takes place in the courthouses of New York City and the show deals with issues similar to those of Indefensible though with fictional characters The show was renewed by the TNT cable network He has written or produced over 100 hours of episodic television having also worked as a consulting producer and writer on the television shows The Firm and In Contempt a coexecutive producer on a number of shows including Drop Dead Diva the CBS legal drama Doubt and Daredevil Born Again as well as an executive producer on the ABC series For Life TV series Feige has appeared on Court TV MSNBC and National Public Radio to comment on legal issues He has also written about the law for The New York Times Los Angeles Times The Washington Post and Boston Globe and magazines like Fortune Slate The New Yorker and The Nation He was on the faculty of the National Criminal Defence College at Walter F George School of Law in Macon Georgia Description above from the Wikipedia article David Feige licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia