What Is Life Worth?

Just eleven days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress created the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. But in its haste, Congress provided very few guidelines as to how the funds should be distributed, and no limit on the in size. Instead it asked a single individual, Kenneth Feinberg, to do the impossible: calculate the dollar value of over 5,500 dead and injured in the worst peacetime disaster in US history. What Is Life Worth? is a personal account of Feinbergs three-year struggle to compensate grieving families for catastrophic loss. As the Washington Post said in its glowing review, Feinberg found the answer to this confounding, heartbreaking dilemma, not in actuarial tables or projected incomes but in the almost limitless capacity of people to love.

Author Biography

Kenneth R. Feinberg, one of the nation’s leading lawyers, has been front and centre in some of the most complex public legal disputes of the past three decades: Agent Orange, asbestos, the closing of the Shoreham Nuclear Plant, and now, 9/11. A former prosecutor and member of two Presidential Commissions, he is also adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and New York University.