"[3] Feinman was born to a Jewish family in Merrick, New York and attended John F. Kennedy High School.
[3][4] His father was a small business owner in New York City, his mother a bookkeeper and later a Nassau County Department of Social Services employee.
[5] Feinman began his legal career as a public defender with the Legal Aid Society, working in Nassau County and then in New York City; at the time, the courts had a crowded criminal docket due to the crack epidemic.
Bar Association and in Democratic politics in the Manhattan neighborhoods of Chelsea and the West Village.
Feinman was the first openly LGBT person to serve on New York's highest court.