[2] His father was Israel S. "Lefty" Weissbrodt, a Columbia-trained lawyer who specialized in Indian tribal claims against the U.S.
[3] His mother was Selma J. Mushkin, a Georgetown University economist and authority on health programs and public management.
[4][5] His uncle was Abe William Weissbrodt, a star basketball player at City College of New York who later pursued a legal career and prosecuted German companies for their ties to Nazi war crimes during World War II.
[6] His cousin, Aurthur Weissbrodt, was a judge on the United States bankruptcy court for the Northern District of California.
[11] He was a director of the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and was elected its chairman in 2008.