Hon. Joan N. Feeney

Hon. Joan N. Feeney is a mediator, arbitrator and referee/special master for JAMS in Boston, where she provides mediation, arbitration and neutral analysis services in complex disputes worldwide. She previously spent nearly 27 years on the bench of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts and 23 years as a member of the U.S. Bankruptcy Appellate Panel for the First Circuit. Judge Feeney presided over a full range of cases, including complex commercial cases with multiple parties and conflicting interests. While on the bench, she wrote over 500 opinions in many different areas of the law. Judge Feeney is a Fellow, vice president and a member of the board of directors of the American College of Bankruptcy and served for three years on its Board of Regents. She is a co-author of the Bankruptcy Law Manual, a two-volume treatise published by Thomson Reuters, and a co-author of a book for consumers, The Road Out of Debt, published by John Wiley & Sons. Judge Feeney was the president of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges in 2011 and 2012 and has served that organization in numerous capacities, including on its Board of Governors,as chair of its Newsletter Committee, as editor in chief and reporter for Conference News, and on special projects. Judge Feeney was the business manager of the American Bankruptcy Law Journal from 2016-18, and was an associate editor from 2013-16. She is a founder and co-chair of the M. Ellen Carpenter Financial Literacy Project, a joint venture of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Massachusetts and the Boston Bar Association. She was a member of the International Judicial Relations Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 2006-12 and hosted many delegations of foreign judges in the U.S., as well as traveled to foreign countries on behalf of the federal judiciary. Judge Feeney co-chaired the Massachusetts Local Rules Committee for many years. She is a member of ABI and sat on its Board of Directors, and she has been judicial chair of several regional ABI educational programs and is a frequent ABI panelist. Prior to her appointment, Judge Feeney was an associate and partner in the Boston law firm Hanify & King, P.C., was a career law clerk to Hon. James N. Gabriel, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the District of Massachusetts, and a partner in the Boston law firm Feeney & Freeley, where her practice included service as a trustee on the U.S. Trustee?s private panel of trustees. In 2005, she received the Boston Bar Association?s Haskell Cohn Award for Distinguished Judicial Service, and in 2009 the American College of Bankruptcy First Circuit Fellows recognized her for contribution to bankruptcy jurisprudence and practice. She also was the 2018 recipient of the Charles P. Normandin Lifetime Achievement Award from the Boston Bar Association and the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges Excellence in Education Award, and she received the American Inns of Court Bankruptcy Distinguished Service Award in 2019. Judge Feeney received her B.A. with distinction in 1975 in French and government from Connecticut College, and her J.D. in 1978 from Suffolk University Law School.