Wednesday, December 04, 2019
YLS '90: Geoffrey Klineberg
I have been devoting Wednesdays to profiling my classmates in the Yale Law class of 1990-- a remarkably accomplished group, as it turns out!
Like last week's classmate, Michelle Browdy, Geoffrey Klineberg came to Yale Law from Princeton, with a stop at Oxford where he picked up a Masters in Philosophy (are you all starting to understand how it was a little intimidating for this process server from Detroit to step into this group?).
When I met him in our first year, he struck me as not only brilliant, but one of the nicest people in the class. I remember him describing the architecture in his hometown of Houston-- it made me want to go there (and when I did, it turned out he was right). There were a lot of people in our class who had brilliance but not a lot of real "people skills," a smaller number who had the social side down but struggled to keep up intellectually, and a few who had both. He was one of those few, and I'm sure that has been a key to his success.
After law school, he pretty much did every interesting thing you could do. He clerked for DC Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Wald, and then for Justice Harry Blackmun of the Supreme Court. He served as a Special Assistant to the Deputy Attorney General, Jamie Gorelick. He co-authored an article with Janet Reno(!).
In 1995, he went into private practice at a firm-- and unlike a lot of us, it stuck. He made partner in just three years at Kellogg Hanson Todd Figel & Frederick in DC and remains there today. Like a strangely large group of classmates he works in communications law, along with a variety of administrative and appellate challenges.
Two of his areas of focus have been legal ethics and pro bono work, and he has brought that focus to work with the DC Bar Association. Most recently, he was elected as the President of the DC Bar-- a remarkable accomplishment in the city that is the epicenter of American law. Here he is talking about his priorities:
It's hard to argue with those priorities-- and they come from a good heart in a place of power.
