Judge William S. Greenberg
Judge William S. Greenberg was nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims by President Barack Obama on November 15, 2012, confirmed by the United States Senate on December 21, 2012, appointed by the President on December 27, 2012,
and took the judicial oath on December 28, 2012, for a term of fifteen years.
Judge Greenberg retired as a partner in McCarter & English in 2012. He joined the firm as an associate following a judicial clerkship in 1968, and returned as a partner in 1993. He was a founding partner of Sterns & Greenberg, 1970-1976 and Greenberg & Prior, 1976-1989. He was also a partner at Sills Cummis, 1989-1993. His entire practice has been litigation in state and federal courts.
Judge Greenberg had been a Certified Civil Trial Attorney by the Supreme Court of New Jersey since 1983. He served as Chairman of the Judicial and Prosecutorial Appointments Committee of the New Jersey State Bar Association, which considers all candidates to be a judge or prosecutor submitted by the Governor of New Jersey. He was President of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, New Jersey, (The New Jersey Association for Justice) and has served as Trustee of the New Jersey State Bar Association and of the New Jersey State Bar Foundation. He also served as a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Committee on the Admission of Foreign Attorneys. He established and chaired the New Jersey State Bar Association (public service/pro bono) program of military legal assistance for members of the Reserve Components called to active duty after September 11, 2001. He was a member of the New Jersey Supreme Court Civil Practice Committee. With the approval of the Secretary of Defense, on the recommendation of The White House, Judge Greenberg became Chairman of the Reserve Forces Policy Board in 2009, a Board established by the Secretary of Defense in 1951 and by Act of Congress in 1952. He was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service, the second highest civilian award in the Defense Department in August 2011.
In 2006 his Civil Trial Handbook, Volume 47 of the New Jersey Practice Series, was published by Thomson/West. A special Twentieth Anniversary issue was published in 2009, to commemorate the 1989 publication of its predecessor, Trial Handbook for New Jersey Lawyers.
He retired as a Brigadier General in 1994, having enlisted as an armored cavalry crewmen, 1967, commissioned in The Judge Advocate General's Corps, 1970 and appointed a general officer by President Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate, 1990. He served as a member of the New Jersey World War II Memorial Commission. Judge Greenberg received the highest honor granted by the New Jersey State Bar Foundation, for his work in establishing the military legal assistance program, and especially in his public service representation of soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center during their physical disability hearings. His article in the June 2007 issue of New Jersey Lawyer Magazine describes the program in detail. He has served as special litigation counsel to The Adjutants General Association of the United States and was special litigation counsel pro bono to the National Guard Association of the United States.
Judge Greenberg was a Commissioner of the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation. He also served as Assistant Counsel to the Governor of New Jersey and as Commissioner of the New Jersey State Scholarship Commission.
Professor Greenberg served as the first Adjunct Professor of Military Law at the Seton Hall University School of Law, and was Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law School.
He was chosen the New Jersey Lawyer Of The Year for 2009 by The New Jersey Law Journal. He received The Distinguished Alumnus Award from The Johns Hopkins University in 2010, and the Rutgers Law School Public Service Award in 2010 for his work in developing and leading the efforts to represent wounded and injured soldiers at Walter Reed.
Judge Greenberg is admitted in New Jersey, New York and the District of Columbia. He is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, and of the Third, Fourth and Federal Circuits, the Southern District of New York, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
He is married to the former Betty Kaufmann Wolf of Pittsburgh. They have three children, Katherine, Anthony and Elizabeth, and four grand children, Sebastian, Emiko, Lillian and Samuel.
