For eighteen years, Russell D. Feingold represented Wisconsin in the United States Senate. He served on the Judiciary, Foreign Relations, Budget, and Intelligence Committees. He also served in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1983 to 1993 and practiced law for six years at Foley & Lardner and LaFollette & Sinykin in Madison, Wisconsin. Feingold graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975, received a degree from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1977, and then went on to Harvard Law School, where he earned his degree in 1979.

Since leaving the Senate, Feingold has been a visiting professor at Marquette University Law School and the inaugural Mimi and Peter Haas Distinguished Visitor at Stanford University during the Spring quarter of 2012.

Feingold is also the author of the New York Times bestseller While America Sleeps, about what America has done wrong both domestically and abroad since the terrorist attacks of September 11, and what steps must be taken to ensure that the next ten years are focused on the international problems that threaten America and its citizens.