United States Department of Justice. Photo: APK, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_F._Kennedy_Department_of_Justice_Building.jpg)
United States Department of Justice. Photo: APK, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_F._Kennedy_Department_of_Justice_Building.jpg)
Clarice Rochelle Feldman is an American lawyer whose career included federal appellate work, labor-law advocacy, private practice, and service in the U.S. Department of Justice. She represented Joseph A. Yablonski and reform mine workers, later worked in the Office of Special Investigations, and wrote on legal, political, and energy issues.
Background
Clarice Rochelle Feldman was born on December 2, 1941, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Harry Wagan and Beatrice Hiken Wagan. Her family background is documented through her parents' names and her later marriage to Howard J. Feldman.
She entered the legal profession during the 1960s, when federal labor regulation, civil-rights enforcement, and public-interest litigation were significant areas of American legal practice. Her later work connected labor disputes, federal investigations, energy policy, and constitutional and criminal-law commentary.
Education
Feldman received a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1963 and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the same institution in 1965. The University of Wisconsin was a major public research university whose professional schools supplied legal and public-service institutions with graduates during the expansion of federal administrative and regulatory work after the Second World War.
Her legal education preceded admission to the Wisconsin bar in 1965 and to the District of Columbia bar in 1969. She was later admitted in Maryland in 1984, supporting a career that moved between federal agencies, labor representation, and private practice.
Career
Feldman began her legal career as an appellate attorney with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., from 1965 to 1969. The Board is the federal agency responsible for administering and enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, including rules governing collective bargaining and unfair labor practices.
In 1969 she served as co-counsel to labor leader Joseph A. Yablonski in challenges involving the United Mine Workers of America. Yablonski's reform campaign contested the leadership of Tony Boyle, and Feldman's work brought her into one of the most prominent American labor-union controversies of the period. Congressional records from 1970 identify her in connection with affidavits and election-challenge materials concerning alleged irregularities in the union's 1969 election.
From 1970 to 1972, Feldman worked as an attorney on a Washington research project associated with Clark College. She then served as associate general counsel of the United Mine Workers of America from 1972 to 1974, applying her legal training within the union whose internal governance had shaped her earlier public-interest work.
Feldman was a partner in Becker, Channell, Becker & Feldman from 1974 to 1976 and in Becker & Feldman from 1976 to 1977. She became general counsel of Americans for Energy Independence from 1978 to 1980, an organization associated with public discussion of domestic energy development and energy policy. Her authorship of a 1979 book on Alaskan energy potential reflected this period's national debate over resource development, energy security, and constraints on economic growth.
From 1980 to 1984, Feldman was an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Special Investigations. The office investigated and prosecuted individuals who had assisted Nazi persecution during the Second World War. She subsequently practiced law privately in Washington, D.C., from 1984 to 1998.
In later years, Feldman wrote legal and political commentary for publications including The Weekly Standard and American Thinker. Her published commentary addressed criminal procedure, federal prosecution, constitutional questions, energy policy, and contemporary political controversies.
Feldman represented Joseph A. Yablonski and reform mine workers in legal challenges arising from the 1969 United Mine Workers of America election and the movement to democratize the union.
Feldman served in the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations, where her work involved prosecutions related to individuals who had assisted Nazi persecution during the Second World War.
Feldman developed a public record of legal and political commentary on federal prosecution, constitutional questions, labor governance, and energy policy.
(Feldman wrote this 142-page book for Americans for Energy...)
1979
Religion
Feldman is Jewish. Judaism is a monotheistic religious tradition rooted in the covenantal relationship between the Jewish people and God, with religious life shaped by the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic interpretation, communal practice, and ethical responsibility.
Her professional and public life developed in the United States during a period when Jewish lawyers and civic professionals participated broadly in government, labor advocacy, education, and public debate. Her documented Jewish affiliation is distinct from her later political and legal positions.
Politics
Feldman is identified with the Democratic Party. In the period when her legal career developed, the party was a broad American coalition that included organized labor, civil-rights advocates, urban constituencies, and liberal reformers.
Her documented legal work included representation connected with labor-union reform and service in federal government. Those activities placed parts of her career within public debates over union democracy, federal enforcement, civil rights, and the responsibilities of government institutions, although the available record does not establish a separate elected political career.
Views
Feldman's published legal commentary emphasizes the importance of clear statutory language, due process, limits on prosecutorial discretion, and accountability in the exercise of government power. Her writing also argues for a substantial role for domestic energy production and criticizes policies that, in her view, place ideological goals above economic stability and legal limits.
Membership
Feldman served as a trustee of Washington International School and as an advisor to the Association for Union Democracy. She was also a member of the Wisconsin, District of Columbia, and Maryland bar associations, professional bodies that support legal practice, professional standards, and continuing engagement with the legal profession.
Trustee
Washington International School
,
United States
Advisor
Association for Union Democracy
,
United States
State Bar of Wisconsin
,
United States
1965
District of Columbia Bar
,
United States
1969
Maryland State Bar Association
,
United States
1984
Personality
Contemporary descriptions of Feldman's writing characterize her as intellectually forceful, sharply analytical, and concise. Her published commentary is marked by direct legal argument and strong criticism of policies or prosecutorial decisions with which she disagrees.
Quotes from others about the person
Thomas Lifson described Feldman as a strong legal and political commentator whose writing combined analytical force with a sharp style. The description appeared in a 2011 American Thinker tribute to her work.
Interests
Legal and political commentary; energy policy; labor-union governance.
Connections
Feldman married Howard J. Feldman on July 11, 1965. They had one child, David Lewis Feldman. Her professional connections included Joseph A. Yablonski, whom she represented in labor-union reform litigation and related election challenges.
Father:
Harry Wagan
Mother:
Beatrice Hiken Wagan
Spouse:
Howard J. Feldman
child:
David Lewis Feldman
References
Supreme Court Journal, November 18, 1971
Documents Feldman's admission to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States on oral motion, with Joseph L. Rauh Jr. as her movant.
1971
The Case of the Missing Crime
An article by Feldman identifying her as a Washington lawyer and former Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations attorney, and describing her legal commentary on the Plame investigation.
2006
Policing the Prosecutors
Feldman's article discussing prosecutorial discretion, supervision, and legal accountability, with examples drawn from contemporary federal criminal cases.
2009
Clarice Feldman tribute
A contemporary profile describing Feldman's legal career, work in the Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations, and later political commentary.
