When Stephen Orlofsky '74 learned that he was one of the 25 first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award winners selected by the New Jersey Law Journal, he thought they'd made a mistake.  But even his humility isn't something the former federal judge, now a Blank Rome partner takes credit for.  "I had no idea that I was even under consideration.  My wife, whose main goal in life is to keep me humble, said I should demand a recount," he jests of Charlotte Gaal '74, who he met at Rutgers Law–Camden.

Of course his distinguished career on the bench speaks for itself.  On June 30, 1995, President Clinton nominated Orlofsky to become a U.S. District Judge for the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.  After the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed him, he served as a federal judge from 1996 to 2003.  His career on the bench began in 1976, as a U.S. Magistrate Judge for the District of New Jersey.  He left the bench in 1980 to join Blank Rome.  In 2003, Orlofsky returned to the firm where he launched his legal career.

When asked about returning to practice after serving as a federal judge, Orlofsky notes the clear difference in vantage points. “It's a different role as a federal judge, a much different role.  I have a different interaction with lawyers and litigants now.  In private practice, I am representing clients as an advocate, interacting with clients and other attorneys as an adversary, as opposed to being a neutral when sitting as a judge."

Orlofsky's is a broad and diverse practice.  While concentrating in areas of complex litigation and alternative dispute resolution, he's also committed to a fair amount of pro bono work, often representing indigents in state and federal courts, or oftentimes involving the New Jersey ethics system.  "I have been appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to serve as a special ethics master in disciplinary matters or an ethics investigator if complaints are filed," he says.  I have also been appointed to represent indigent clients in the District of New Jersey as part of the District Court’s pro bono program.  He also was recently appointed to represent a pro bono client before the New Jersey Supreme Court in a case raising an important constitutional issue involving the Ex Post Facto clause.  Riley v. New Jersey State Parole Board, 219 N.J. 270 (2014).

A professional experience that showcases the passion a resume can't quite possibly portray is when Orlofsky served as one of three federal judges on a 13-person Judicial Assessment Team that traveled to Iraq in 2003 to aid in that country's rebuilding of its court system.  "My team covered South Central Iraq.  We visited courthouses and met with Iraqi lawyers.  We made recommendations to the Coalition Provisional Authority (“CPA”).  We became the CPA’s advisor on how to restructure and reorganize the Iraqi court system to get it up and running."

The three-month tour of duty was shortened to six weeks, due to the unsafe conditions in the region.  When he returned home, Orlofsky received an email from the Iraqi lawyer assigned as an interpreter to Orlofsky's team that her father was murdered in retaliation for her role in assisting the American judges.  Orlofsky says he and his team might not have been able to adequately aid in reconstructing Iraq's court system, but he did what he could to help redirect the lives of one Iraqi family.

"In December 2003, my partners at Blank Rome and I became immigration lawyers," he says of helping her, her two sisters, her two brothers, and her mother escape from Iraq and ultimately become United States citizens.  "I don't know how successful our trip was in getting the Iraqi judicial system up and running, but we saved an Iraqi family.  It took us from 2003 to 2009 to get them all safely to the United States.  Today, they are all here, and have become United States citizens.”

One of those brothers even earned a law degree in 2011, and Orlofsky returned to his alma mater to present the Iraqi native a Rutgers Juris Doctor.  This Iraqi family has become a part of Orlofsky's family, even coming to Thanksgiving dinner at his home.  “That trip in many ways was very profound for me not just in a judicial sense, but in a personal sense as well.”

Orlofsky's Rutgers Law family is a source of pride for the Lifetime Achievement Award-winner.  “Rutgers Law School provided me with a great legal education.  It certainly equipped me for practicing at a very high level, to become a federal judge, and a partner with an AMLaw 100 firm.  The quality of the legal education was terrific then, and it's gotten even better now.  I owe a great deal to Rutgers and I am proud to call myself one of its graduates.”