Wall Street, Meet Ken Feinberg, the Pay Czar

Ken Feinberg is a close talker. Feinberg, a lawyer who in June was named the Treasury Department's special master for executive compensation , starts his sentences about 18 inches from your face and, with a thick Boston accent, leans in to make his point.

It's an unusual trait for a guy who has to deliver the type of news that most of us would prefer to dispense from across the room or, better yet, by e-mail from a do-not-reply address. On Oct. 22, he told 136 top executives of seven bailed-out firms that effective immediately, he...