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Randy Schoenberg

Board Member

Attorney and genealogist E. Randol Schoenberg specializes in legal cases related to the recovery of looted or stolen artworks, particularly those by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. He is the grandson of two Austrian composers: Arnold Schoenberg and Eric Zeisl.

Mr. Schoenberg represented Maria Altmann in her suit to recover six Gustav Klimt paintings from the estate of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer that were stolen by the Nazis. Altmann won her case before the Supreme Court of the United States against the government of Austria in 2004. Mr. Schoenberg is featured in two documentary films concerning the suit, Stealing Klimt and Adele’s Wish. He is depicted by Ryan Reynolds in Woman in Gold, a 2015 feature film dramatizing the extraordinary case. He received the California Lawyer Attorney of the Year award in 2007 for outstanding achievement in litigation practice.

Mr. Schoenberg is of counsel and was the co-founding partner of Burris, Schoenberg & Walden, LLP. He served as president of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust from 2005 to 2015. He administers the Schoenberg and Zeisl DNA Projects on Family Tree DNA and is the author of the Beginner’s Guide to Austrian-Jewish Genealogy and co-author of Getting Started with Czech-Jewish Genealogy.

Mr. Schoenberg lectures at the Gould School of Law of the University of Southern California. He graduated from Princeton University in 1988 and received his J.D. degree from USC in 1991.