Transcript
Speaker: You're listening to the multi-award winning podcast from Rutgers Law School, The Power of Attorney. I'm your host and Dean of the Law School, Joanna Bond.
Speaker: On today's episode, I'm joined by Judge Stephen M. Orlovsky. Judge Orlovsky is a lawyer, a former judge of the US District Court for the District of New Jersey, and a former nominee to be a United States Circuit Court judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Speaker: Prior to attending law school, Judge Orlovsky served in the Army during Vietnam, after which he came here to Rutgers. He graduated in 1974 from the Camden campus of Rutgers Law School and is a proud and active alum.
Speaker: Without further ado, here's my conversation with Judge Stephen Orlovsky.
Speaker: Welcome again, Judge. We're going to begin with a question that we ask many of our guests. Will you please share with us your origin story? Good morning, Dean Bond. It's a pleasure to see you again and speak with you.
Speaker: I was born on June 24, 1944 in the South Bronx in a hospital called Bronx Hospital, which no longer exists. according to my mother, it was the hottest day ever.
Speaker: That was before climate change reached us. And when I was born, i was premature and I had some breathing problems. And in those days, it doctors didn't have available to them all the technology and science that they have now to treat premature baby. So for a while it was touch and go. And, um, finally the doctor said, he's going to be okay.
Speaker: ah This, this guy is a tough kid. And my mother said, she said, and my mother said, when she heard that, I didn't realize how tough it was going to be. Um, in any event, um, I grew up in the South Bronx, went to public and elementary schools, um, went to,
Speaker: I first actually I first became interested in the law in the fifth or sixth grade, believe it or not. There was some smattering of the Federalist Papers and I, you know, I was very intrigued by them.
Speaker: And I came home that day. I was a it was 11, 12 years old. I said to my mother, I said, you know, Mom, I think I want to become a lawyer. And she said, oh, Stephen, you're not smart enough to be a lawyer.
Speaker: Well, in any event, OK, mom, I think you've proven her wrong well in any event. um Ultimately, um I went to Stuyvesant High School, which was a special one of three special schools in New York City for which you had to take a test.
Speaker: And I think at Stuyvesant High School, although I went on to college and law school, I think I at Stuyvesant High School, I had in my class some of the brightest people in the world.
Speaker: when we were juniors, I guess, 15 or 16, we took the SAT tests. And um my homeroom class, I think, had 16 boys in it. ah Stuyvesant was not co-ed at that time. It was all boys. It became co-ed in the 1980s.
Speaker: And nine of them got perfect scores, 1600. And I got 1575. and i got i got a fifteen seventy five like That's pretty darn close. And my mother said, what are you, the dummy of the class?
Speaker: What did you get wrong? It sounds like she was kind of tough on you. Yeah, well, she was. So in any event, I said, mom, they don't tell you what you're getting wrong. But it turned out um of the nine who got perfect scores, one ultimately won the Nobel Prize in physics and one ultimately won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Speaker: Amazing. I went on ah from Stuyvesant High School to... By the way, Stuyvesant High School's graduation was traditionally held in Carnegie Hall.
Speaker: And of our teachers He says, I want you to remember what I'm about to tell you. And what's that? He says, how do you get to Carnegie Hall? And of course, we had no no idea what he was talking about.
Speaker: He said, practice. Words to live by. That's great, Judge. In any event, i went on and went on to City College, City College of New York, which at the time...
Speaker: was pretty tough to get into. It was still ah tuition free. And it was in those days, it was not open admissions. And it was pretty, pretty competitive to get in. I got in there. i got in, majored in political science.
Speaker: um Ultimately, when I graduated, I was between, i was thinking about law school, but I hadn't gotten, hadn't gotten into, I hadn't been admitted to law school.
Speaker: And so my student deferment expired. in the end of 1965, 1966. And accordingly, i got drafted. What was happening is President Johnson had made a decision to send 30,000 men a month to Vietnam, but hadn't bartered to tell any of us.
Speaker: And so ultimately, I entered the Army in January 1966, went to basic training and advanced individual training in at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, quite a place.
Speaker: um And um hey when I was assigned in advanced individual training to an artillery battery, and they were training me in what was called the Fire Direction Center.
Speaker: In the field artillery, there are three elements. There's ah a person called a forward observer who's out there with the infantry. calling in targets to the fire direction center, who then plopped the targets on map maps and called the commands down to the guns.
Speaker: And the battery commander of that of that AIT battery was a young captain by the name of Jimmy D. Mount. I'll never forget him. He was a West Point graduate.
Speaker: He was just back from Vietnam when he came in to see me one day. And he said, congratulations, Orlovsky, you're going to OCS. I said, I am?
Speaker: I said, Captain, i't I don't remember applying for that. he said, I applied for you. I said, I guess I'm going to OCS. That's great. And for the listeners who may not be familiar, will you tell everyone what OCS is?
Speaker: OCS is Officer Candidate School. So i I attended the United States Army Artillery and Missile School Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, which is in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Speaker: ah this was a pretty This was a six-month program, and it was pretty demanding, both physically and intellectually. You have to understand that before I went into the Army, I had never fired a rifle or a pistol, not to mention a howitzer. I didn't know what a howitzer was.
Speaker: And they were training us, essentially, to learn how to fire howitzers, to provide artillery fire. So it was a pretty demanding program, both physically and intellectually.
Speaker: um and I graduated in December 17, 1966.
Speaker: Our class was commissioned, and my best friend and OCS classmate, a guy by the name of Pinky Durham, that's right, his name was Pinky. um He got that name when he was born at the hospital. They didn't have any blue blankets, so they gave him a pink blanket, and so he became Pinky, and I never knew his real name.
Speaker: but he was just pink He was just Pinky Durham, a real character. he He grew up in Tifton, Georgia. He had never been further north than Tifton, Georgia.
Speaker: And I'd never been further south than the South Bronx. And we became brothers. um Then you know the war ensued, unfortunately.
Speaker: um Pinky was killed in Vietnam. on October 17, 1967, 10 months to the day after we graduated. And he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously.
Speaker: um In those days, we didn't have texts or emails. And so I never found out that he had been killed until probably 1969. And I was devastated.
Speaker: um and i was just you know i was just devastated um I don't know if I've shared this with you, but Pinky Durham's photograph and the citation, which accompanied his Medal of Honor, hangs on the wall of my office.
Speaker: And whenever I think I'm having a bad day, I go read the citation. And recommend to you and anyone else that you Google google Pinky's name and read the citation that accompanied his Medal of Honor.
Speaker: In any event, I got out of the Army in March of 2015.
Speaker: And I started thinking about law school, looking at law schools. And I applied to a couple and I discovered a law school I hadn't really heard of before called Rutgers Law School.
Speaker: text on I was familiar with Rutgers University, but I didn't know it had a law school. And it was somewhere in a place called Camden, New Jersey, a place where I had never been before.
Speaker: Dean Bond, you probably had that experience yourself. Yes, yes, absolutely. so tell us a little bit more about about why you ultimately chose Rutgers. Well, it was interesting. I applied to ah couple of others, Columbia, Yale.
Speaker: And while I got in, the prices were astronomical. They were really, you know, even with financial aid. And I was thinking, you know, really, you know And I was just getting out of the army. i really didn't have any any assets. that And so I went down to visit the law school. um This was just before they moved into the new, what the the was then the new building, now the old building.
Speaker: um The law school had been functioning out of some, essentially a warehouse, a Campbell Soup warehouse somewhere in the city of Camden.
Speaker: And I went down and I visited and I said, I looked at the city of Camden. I was, wow, you know, it was quite, it was quite a shocker. And I had, I asked to talk to, you know, an interview with, just to talk to somebody about it.
Speaker: And, um, I interviewed with a professor, Don Kepner. Don Kepner was quite a character. He, I ultimately had him for, um,
Speaker: Civil procedure and federal courts. And he was a real character. And so I met him and he told me, says, look, next year we're moving into a brand new building. This is not where you're going to go to law school.
Speaker: And he talked to me about he talked to me about the law school. He said, look, this is this law school is starting to grow, which going to be great someday. This will be a great opportunity, et cetera, et cetera. And the other thing that was very attractive is that the tuition was much more reasonable than any place else.
Speaker: And, you know, I said, why not? So ultimately, i i accepted Rutgers and I began at Rutgers in September 1971. Now, my my first day of law school is probably different than the first day of law school of most law students.
Speaker: um It was September 1971. The first day of law school, I wore my army field jacket. And ah bunch of us, I guess, you know first year law students were milling about on the outside outside that what was then the new law school building.
Speaker: And some some guy I'd never seen before in my life came up to me, looked at my field jacket, and said, oh, you're one of those baby killers. Well,
Speaker: um that did not resonate with me, so to speak. And I was still in pretty good shape in those days. And I'd even boxed in college. And then I hit him with a right cross.
Speaker: He went down like a stone. And I said, I don't kill babies, but I do kill assholes.
Speaker: I love that story. I've heard you tell it before, Judge, and I love it every single time. So you have to tell us what happened after that. Well, two significant things happened after that. First, as I'm walking away from hitting this guy, I'm thinking to myself, this is probably not the best way to start law school.
Speaker: Fair. That's fair enough. About three days later, i was i was in, I think, my con law class. I was wearing my Army field jacket and a very...
Speaker: attractive young blonde woman came up to me, looked at my fill jacket, and she said, oh, welcome home. Thank you for your service. My name is Charlotte Cole.
Speaker: Charlotte and I were married three years later. That's such a great story. Charlotte was the first one to welcome me home. But I wasn't done with my first day of law school.
Speaker: In those days, we didn't have text or email. So people would leave messages on the bulletin board and everybody would check the bulletin board every day to see you know if there were any messages.
Speaker: So one day I checked the bulletin board and sure enough, there's a message that says, Mr. Orlovsky, Dean Fairbanks would like to see you in his office so tomorrow. i said gene Dean Fairbanks was the dean of the law school.
Speaker: And I'm thinking, well, I'm going to get thrown out of law school. So the next day i go up to Dean Fairbanks's office. I'm still wearing my army field jacket. He's sitting behind his desk in a three piece suit and sitting there on a couch in his office is the guy I hit.
Speaker: Dean Fairbanks looks at me and he says, Captain Orlovsky, your colleague over there tells me you assaulted him. I said, yes, sir, I did.
Speaker: And if he calls me baby killer again, I'm going to assault him again. Dean Frazbanks smiled, looked at me, looked at the guy on the couch. He said, your excuse, please leave and close the door.
Speaker: Not to you, but to the other guy. Right. Yes. Okay. He says, then he says to me, Orlovsky, you probably don't know this, but I commanded an infantry company of the 82nd Airborne in World War II.
Speaker: I'm still in the reserves and I'm at two-star general. He said, and I called the Department of the Army about you. And you have a distinguished military record. And if you would come home in my war, people would be shaking your hand and buy you drinks.
Speaker: And he said, look, if anybody bothers you again, don't, please don't hit them. Come see me. I'll take care of it. And I look at him. OK, I said, but what about him pointing to the door and the guy who had just left?
Speaker: He looked at me, he winked and he said, who? And that was it. That was it. Now, Dean Bonn, I'm not going to ask you what you would have done.
Speaker: if you were the dean when I came into your office, because I have a feeling the result might have been a little different. But we don't have to we don't have to go into what you would have done. Fair. That's fair enough.
Speaker: But i'm I'm thrilled that Dean Fairbeck's handled it the way that he did and that we and can now claim you as one of our most esteemed graduates. So ah we're thrilled that you stayed.
Speaker: And it turned out turned out you know, it was still, I guess, in those days of the early seventies, Rutgers law school, obviously it hadn't been, it hadn't been combined with Rutgers law school in Newark, but it was still a growing law school.
Speaker: And, um, the legal education was great. The faculty was, was great. Um, you know, I had some great, I had some great teachers. Um, and, um,
Speaker: i you know There were some subjects that ah really interested me, con law, criminal law, federal jurisdiction, and those and those sorts of things. And it really it really opened my eyes to the world of law.
Speaker: oh I really didn't know anything. No one in my family had ever been a lawyer. I'd never worked at a law firm. I didn't know what lawyers did. And you know I was impressed by the tremendous diversity of activities that lawyers engaged in.
Speaker: And another great thing happened. My third year at those, at that time, the law school had an internship should program. And I had applied for an internship to clerk for the then chief judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Chief Judge Mitchell Cohen, to be an intern. And those, in those days, internship programs were just starting out. and They were internship programs with judges.
Speaker: legal services and all sorts of public agencies. And so, and you had an interview for this. And I interviewed and ah my, my, one of my classmates, I was a class of 74. He was a class of 73, Joel Rosen, who became my best friend. And ultimately my magistrate judge was then clerking for judge Cohen.
Speaker: And, uh, if if you would ask Joel what happened, he would tell you, yeah, Steve came in, he interviewed the judge, Steve blew the interview, but I told the judge that he should overlook that and he should take him on as an interview. So he takes credit.
Speaker: He takes credit for everything. Right, right. The day I was sworn in as a federal judge, he took credit for that too. ah It's nice to have good friends like that. but So anyway, so in in interning for Judge Cohn was, I mean,
Speaker: you know, just think about it. I'm a young law student. I'm not even out of law school. um I'm clerking for a federal judge, not just a federal judge, but the chief judge of a district. And Judge Cohn was an incredible guy.
Speaker: He was a ah great judge. He had been a trial lawyer. ah He had been a county prosecutor. um And he was just a wonderful guy, and sort of a renaissance man.
Speaker: um Somehow he became, he had a a grade school friend who was producing a show called My Fair Lady and Judge Cohn invested in it and suddenly became very wealthy.
Speaker: That's a wise investment, I would say. well i said, i to Judge, how did you know to do this? She said, Steve, you just have to know the right people And I met Herb Levin, who was the producer, in the fourth grade, and I figured I could trust him.
Speaker: That's fantastic. So so after i click as I was oh clerking, I applied for ah job with the United States Attorney's Office in Newark.
Speaker: and i Jonathan Goldstein was the U.S. Attorney, and he offered me a job as an AUSA to begin when I finished my clerkship. And in those days, and in those days ah This was a great opportunity, especially if he wanted to become a lot like you know a ah yeah a trial lawyer. And the United States Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey had a long and storied history.
Speaker: um i won't go into its history today, but it was much different back then. And then so I was finishing my clerkship. And one day, Judge Cohn came into the law library and said, Steve, you're not going to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Speaker: I said, I'm not. He says, no, I have another job for you. I said, what's that, Judge? He says, you're going to be the first magistrate judge in Camden. I said, Judge, I haven't practiced law at all. He says, said Steve, it's OK.
Speaker: You're smarter than anybody else we're going to find. You watch me. You know what to do. and And you have your military experience. um You'll have no trouble doing this.
Speaker: And in those days, ah magistrates were selected by majority vote of the district judges. okay And I said, well, what would the judges say? And I'll never forget what Judge Cohn said to me. And in this deep, deep voice of his, he said, quote, my dear boy, I have the votes, close quote.
Speaker: That's great. I'm sure he he obviously did. he knew what he was talking about. And he recognized talent. so he So today, you know after a couple of years, the Magistrates Act was amended and you could know you to now you have to be admitted at least 10 years.
Speaker: The court has to advertise. There's a committee that interviews applicants and it's a much different process. So it could never happen like that today. So I went from law clerk to magistrate judge.
Speaker: And then eventually into private practice at Blank Row, correct? So he told me that private practice.
Speaker: I had three children at the time and Joel, Joel, who claims he got me jobs everywhere, claim was then ah an associate at Blank Rome, Comiskey, and McCauley in Philadelphia.
Speaker: And I was talking to him one day and I said, Joel, you know, I've got three kids. I've got to find a real job.
Speaker: And Joel said, Ed Rome, who was the one of the founding partners of Blank Rome, had appeared before me, believe or not, on a motion. And that was an incredible experience for me.
Speaker: i mean, it was like, who is this guy? I mean, really. He was such a talented lawyer that he left that impression. Ed Roan was probably one of the 25 best lawyers in the history of the Republic. That's how good he was. So, why don't you, he said, Steve, why don't you call Ed Roan?
Speaker: He was very impressed with you. And I won't tell him what an asshole you are. That's good. so, so So and naturally, I interviewed with Ed Rome. He ultimately hired me, and I joined Blank Rome in its Philadelphia office. We didn't have a New Jersey office then in 1980. And something called...
Speaker: and something called he didn't we can Practice groups were about 10 or 15 years away for law firms, but Ed had formed his own practice group. He called it complex litigation, and it consisted mostly of securities and antitrust cases, a lot of class actions.
Speaker: So I essentially became his you know his lawyer. um And he he would always say to me, Stephen, don't tell me what I can't do.
Speaker: Tell me what I can do. And, you know, and that became, you know, that became ingrained in me. um Ultimately, in 1984, Blank Rome opened its own office under its own name in New Jersey.
Speaker: Prior to that, under the New Jersey Rules of Professional Conduct, every lawyer whose name was in a law firm name had to be admitted in New Jersey. And Ed Rome and Marvin Comiskey were not interested in taking the new Jersey bar exam.
Speaker: But now Blankrome could practice under that name, provided they designated a New Jersey responsible lawyer, and they picked me to be the New Jersey responsible lawyer.
Speaker: So I came over to New Jersey with Blankrome and opened its office, and first office in New Jersey in 1984.
Speaker: And practiced in, was a pretty active trial practice. It was,
Speaker: both civil and criminal. um And it was a pretty active practitioner. And um one day I guess in 1995, Bill Clinton had been elected president in 1992. And a vacancy occurred and the district court.
Speaker: And one day I got a call from Senator Frank Lautenberg, whom I didn't know. And
Speaker: he said, I heard a lot about you. How'd you like to be a federal judge? I said, I'd like that very much, Senator. So hi he interviewed me and it was it was pretty competitive.
Speaker: um That's probably an understatement judge. What made it difficult was, most most people don't realize this, but people who have who are have been active either active politically or have made significant political donations usually get serious consideration.
Speaker: I hadn't been active politically, and I certainly had not made any significant political donations, but um what happened is I had, um when I had been a magistrate judge, I worked for the then chief judge, Chief Judge John F. Gary.
Speaker: Judge Gary was a Princeton graduate, and he went to the Harvard Law School. He was really bright, really funny, and he was into baseball. And he um he had had a tryout with the New York Giants as a left-handed pitcher.
Speaker: It didn't go well. um And in fact, as he was pitching, ah the all the hitters ah aligned hit line drives off the wall at the polar grounds.
Speaker: And he got the name Boom Boom Gary thereafter. So he was known as boom, boom, Gary. Oh no. So, ah so did you bond over baseball?
Speaker: I'm sorry. Did you bond over baseball? Uh, you know, and I was his magistrate judge and, you know, we got to, we got to work, uh, we got to work together and, you know, we were very close. And, um, so Senator Lautenberg was doing his due diligence and he called George Gary about me and George Gary, um,
Speaker: must have been very persuasive. In any event, Judge Gary became ill, unfortunately, and was dying of cancer.
Speaker: And his wife, Jean, called me one day in the office and she said, Steve, come out to the house. Jack wants to see you. So I'll go out to Judge Gary's house in Morristown.
Speaker: And she says, Steve, he's upstairs in the bedroom. Go up and see him. It's okay. So I go up to see him and he's literally on his deathbed and he looks at me and he says, Steve, I had a call today from Senator Lautenberg about you.
Speaker: I'm sorry, but I had to tell him the truth.
Speaker: OK. So then he says, then he says.
Speaker: Do you think. You can fill my shoe.
Speaker: And what did you say? I was I was speechless. First of all, he's dying and he's doing stick. Right. Judge. I said, nobody can ever fill your shoe, but I'll do my best.
Speaker: And then he said a classic line that has followed me from that day to this. Said, Steve, the thing about being a judge is you have to be yourself unless you're a jackass.
Speaker: Steve, you're going to have to be somebody else.
Speaker: all right. I don't want our listeners to believe that any of that is true. You are a wonderful, wonderful person. so another So incredible coincidences. In the 1980s, I had a partner in Philadelphia by the name of Neil Steinman, who came into my office one day, is mid-1980s, said, Steve, I need you to write a check for $1,000 to Bill Clinton for governor of Arkansas.
Speaker: And I said, Neil, I'm We are sitting in Philadelphia. Why am I writing a check to somebody who's running for governor of Arkansas? and And Neil says to me, Bill Clinton was in my law school class and at Yale, and he's going to be president of the United States someday, and he's going to nominate you to the federal bench.
Speaker: I said, yeah, right, Neil. Sure enough, the president calls you when they nominate you. Mm-hmm. And so President Clinton got on the phone with me and I'd never met him.
Speaker: And he was a very chatty guy. And he says, Steve, I want to nominate you to the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. He said, Neil Steinman wants me to nominate you to the Court of Appeals.
Speaker: But I think we should take this one step at a time. He was giving you a tryout. so I agree, Mr. President. He said, good. I will submit your nomination to the Senate. So I went through the, you know, I went through the nomination process.
Speaker: Now we'd all read about, read in the constitution, how presidents nominate federal judges with the advice of consent of the Senate, but it is quite ah press process, a process. The United States Senate consists of 100 separate kingdoms.
Speaker: Right. Right. So, um, anyway, um i I was nominated. i was confirmed 100 to nothing when I told my dear wife, Charlotte Gall of blessed memory, that I was confirmed 100 to nothing.
Speaker: She said, well, they don't know you as well as I do.
Speaker: I'm glad you had people in your life judged to keep you humble. Charlotte did that, it sounds like. sure so Charlotte would tell everybody. It was her job to keep me humble. And unfortunately, she did too good a job of it.
Speaker: Yes, I believe that. I believe that. and And so how long were you on the bench then? Okay, so I went on the bench on, sworn in on February 5th, 1996, and I left August 1, 2003.
Speaker: Let me tell you a little bit about my experience as a different district judge. I had some interesting cases. um One of the first cases I had, which um and And, you know, have a lot of cases. I mean, the docket, we were short judges in those days, and the docket was amazing.
Speaker: And so there was a heavy criminal load. And one of the first cases I had, one of the first criminal cases, involved a guy by the name of Michael Norwood, who was charged with bank robbery and carjacking.
Speaker: Carjacking was then a new statute. It had just been enacted by Congress as a result of essentially carjackings throughout the country. And there was no federal statute that criminalized that conduct.
Speaker: So the Norwood case is assigned to me and and um it involves the carjacking statute, which had never been tried by any judge before in the district of New Jersey.
Speaker: And it presented, he was represented by the federal public defender's office. He was African-American. And his lawyer wanted to present expert testimony.
Speaker: A lot of the testimony involved identification of Norwood as the bank robber. ah She wanted to print present expert testimony on the issue of cross-racial identification.
Speaker: That is the discrepancies in witness identification of of Caucasians identifying African-Americans. Right. um that had never That had never been done before.
Speaker: Obviously, it involved an application of the Daubert principles. And so I wrote an opinion granting her motion to allow expert testimony on the issue of cross-racial identification.
Speaker: Wow, that's fantastic. That must have established important precedent in New Jersey. and Ultimately, ah couple years later, I was asked to sit by designation on the Third Circuit with Chief Judge Becker and Judge Roth.
Speaker: And we had a carjacking case. And since I had had experience, Judge Becker said, well, Jane and I don't know anything about this carjacking statute.
Speaker: You do. You write the opinion. So I got to write an opinion in the Third Circuit on carjacking. Fantastic. One of the other cases that was was interesting that I'll mention briefly was a case involving the construction of a cement plant in the city of Camden.
Speaker: And a group of South Jersey residents known as the South Camden Citizens in Action brought in action against the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection based on um violation of the EPA's Title VI environmental justice regulations.
Speaker: And after much argument and briefing, I wrote about 150 page opinion oh
Speaker: granting the injunction sought to pre prevent the opening of the cement plant, implying a cause of action on the EPA's Title VI regulations.
Speaker: ah About two weeks after i filed that opinion, the United States Supreme Court, Justice Scalia, in a 5-4 decision in a case called Alexander v. Sandoval, overruled 30 years of civil rights jurisprudence and said you could no longer bring implied cause of actions based on federal regulations.
Speaker: well However, there was a dissent by Justice Stevens in that case where Justice Stevens said, well, it doesn't matter really because this claim thing can be brought under the Civil Rights statute, 28 U.S.C. 1983.
Speaker: section nineteen eighty so
Speaker: I bring the lawyers back in. obviously i have to vacate the injunction and I ask them to brief the question of whether the South Jersey citizens in action can amend their complaint to assert this claim under 1983.
Speaker: So another round of briefing.
Speaker: And ultimately I read write a second opinion finding that the claim can be asserted under and to the civil rights action. Excellent. The civil statute.
Speaker: Because Justice Stephenson opened the door for that. Right. So naturally the case goes so naturally the case goes up to the Third Circuit.
Speaker: And I'm ultimately reversed two to one. It was a dissent, one dissent. And the majority of opinion was written by Judge Morton Greenberg.
Speaker: So I called him. ah said, Morty, Morty, you've got this all wrong. Did you read the record?
Speaker: I love it. And had he? And he said, of course, Steve, you were exercising executive power, not judicial power, blah, blah, blah. He said, you're a great judge, but you got this one wrong.
Speaker: couple years later, president ah Judge Greenberg takes senior status. judge judge Judge Greenberg takes senior status, which creates a vacancy on the Third Circuit.
Speaker: And President Clinton nominates me to fill the vacancy. So I call Morty. I said, the president has nominated me to fill your your seat, Morty.
Speaker: says, congratulations. I said, yeah, the president called me. He said, we're trading up.
Speaker: That's great. That's great. Did he appreciate that? Did he have a sense of humor? He did. Oh, good. He did. Unfortunately, it was too close to the 2000 presidential election.
Speaker: And so I never got a hearing and the nomination died in committee. but That is clearly our loss. so But at the time, Judge Rosen, of course, captured the essence of the episode.
Speaker: in one sentence and circulated an email to the court and said, if Orlovsky is elevated to the Third Circuit, it will raise the average IQ of both courts.
Speaker: I love it. I love it. That's fantastic. So ultimately i decided, and um had I stayed, I probably would have been nominated again to the Third Circuit. But my docket had become overwhelmed by drug cases. i mean possession and distribution of CDS and fell in in possession of a firearm.
Speaker: And I just decided that I didn't want to spend the rest of my life doing that. And so I went back to blank Rome. Now, my partners at blank Rome will tell you that they took me back into the partnership by an equally divided vote.
Speaker: And so I went back to went back to blank Rome, went back to ah its New Jersey office, which was then in Sherry Hill and resumed the practice and ah and also developed ah an alternative dispute resolution resolution practice involving arbitrations and mediations. And I'm now working on developing an appellate practice with Judge Lewis, who was on the, who had been on the, who was a judge on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.
Speaker: And so we are actively building an appellate practice. We have a practice group. Although we'd all done a lot of appeals, we never formalized it into a practice group, and now we have.
Speaker: That's wonderful. I want to talk about the importance of of appellate practice in a moment, but in the meantime, I want to ask you about your favorite part of the job. What what do you enjoy most about about the work that you're doing now?
Speaker: Well, um I've always loved trying cases, but unfortunately, we don't try too many cases anymore. for lots of reasons. It's too expensive many now because of the availability of alternative dispute resolutions. A lot of cases get tried in arbitration or get settled in mediation.
Speaker: ah But trying a case was always a fun part of the job. it was always It was always an experience that I loved. But i also enjoy I also enjoy arguing appeals.
Speaker: um both in state and federal court and in and doing and in doing mediations, trying you know trying to settle, you know, usually the cases I mediate involve issues where there's a lot at stake.
Speaker: right ah and And the same is true with arbitrations. and you know And the thing about arbitrations is people who decide to go to arbitration can do what is essentially legal judge shopping.
Speaker: They can pick, you know, the arbitrator Now, the disadvantages are that is discovery is limited in arbitrations and there's essentially no appeal.
Speaker: Right. But it's it's convenient, it's faster, it's cheaper, and you know clients who want a quick decision are willing to you know give up limited give up limited discovery or give up discovery and and give up the right to appeal for for a quick resolution.
Speaker: hu Well, I can understand it must be gratifying to bring those cases to resolution as a as a mediator, arbitrator. ah One of the things that I want to ask you about has to do with um a trip that you took to Iraq back in 2003 with two other federal judges on a mission to help Iraqis who supported the U.S. during the second Gulf War. And and i want to I want to ask you about the details of that trip because in my mind, it just demonstrates –
Speaker: um your your humanity in so many ways. but But so- Well, let me tell you how that came about. Yeah, let let's delve into that. oh Obviously, the second Gulf War was ongoing.
Speaker: And I guess in March or April of 2003, I got a call from Chief George Becker of the Third Circuit, who was a friend of mine, who said, Steve, you know,
Speaker: We want to send the and talking to the highest levels of our government, which to me meant he was talking to Senator Arlen Spector, who was a law school classmate of his at Yale.
Speaker: And I said, really, what did Arlen have to say? and he said, we want to send a delegation of judges to Iraq to examine the courts and make recommendations to get the courts up and running after the war.
Speaker: And we'd like to send you. You'd be perfect with your military background. And I said, Ed, are they sending any Republicans?
Speaker: i I'll get back to you. So ah go home and I tell Charlotte about it. She knew Ed Rome. I said, Ed Rome called me today. She said, what did he want?
Speaker: So I told her, he says, You're not going. Don't ridiculous. I said, look, we have 150,000 troops. This is for them. It's going to be lot harder to make peace than to make war.
Speaker: So over her objection, i went.
Speaker: And there was there were two other federal judges who were part of the group, plus a bunch of public defend federal public defenders in AUSAs.
Speaker: And the goal was, although it wasn't clear at the time, was to visit the courts, inspect the courts, and then make recommendations to, you know, the then it was called the Coalition Governing party Authority about how to reorganize the Iraqi courts.
Speaker: Now, the Iraqi courts at the time were civil courts modeled after the French and Egyptian models. They didn't have didn't have jury trials, they didn't have common law, was statutory.
Speaker: It was basically such statutory law. And in Iraq, it had a it had what was called but is called Sharia law, which is religious law, which governs the relationships between men and women and marriage.
Speaker: And, you know, the grounds for divorce, which is completely different than our law. Essentially, women in Iraq had no rights. But anyway, so we... we when we got there, we organized into three separate groups.
Speaker: One group to visit visit north the courthouses in northern Iraq, one to central Iraq, and another in southern Iraq. Now, I needed an interpreter, and I had a young Iraqi female attorney, guess she was between 25 and 30, to serve as my interpreter.
Speaker: Now, she would have to travel with us. So she had to get permission from her father to travel with us without an escort. Judge Rosen said her father will never agree when he finds out about it your reputation.
Speaker: right But in any event, she did. And she traveled with us. And um
Speaker: they were, you know, many of the Iraqis had not gotten President Bush's message about miss mission accomplished. And so
Speaker: there was a lot of i'll call insurgent action. There were snipers and all kinds of things. um And so she traveled around us traveled with us to visit various courthouses, um both as an interpreter and also to provide some insight into the, you know, the Iraqi judicial system, which was which was essentially under Saddam.
Speaker: completely corrupt. It was, you know, so so ultimately it became so dangerous that, that the, they decided to pull us out. We originally was supposed to be there for about three months, but by July 4th, it had become pretty dangerous and they decided to withdraw us.
Speaker: When I got home around July 4, 2003,
Speaker: I got a an email from Faten, who had been my interpreter, that because she and her brothers had cooperated with us, someone came looking for them.
Speaker: They were not home, so they murdered her father. Oh, that's awful. Terrifying. So I Faten, don't worry. In September, I will be practicing law again, and we will find a way to get you out.
Speaker: So I went back into private practice Blancrom in September of 2003. two thousand and three And among other things, I became an immigration lawyer. My experience with the INS as a district judge had not been a happy or happy one.
Speaker: The INS generally knew one word, no, to everything. But in any event, So my partners and I began this effort to get them out. And it took us six years.
Speaker: We got Faten, her two brothers, her mother, and two sisters out. And they're all American citizens. Now, Faten came to the United States. We got her a job as a paralegal in Blancrom's Philadelphia office.
Speaker: And her brother, Bassam, who had a master's degree in computer science, we got him a job in our Philadelphia office as in IT, in our IT department.
Speaker: of for Bassam was very interested in in in the law. So he applied to Rutgers Law School, to the night school. He got in he was admitted.
Speaker: And when he graduated, Dean Solomon, one of your predecessors, called me and says, said Bassam is graduating. I want you to come to the graduation and present him with his diploma.
Speaker: wow I want everybody to hear this story. so That is so inspiring, Judge. and And again, i you know I think it reflects so much about you and your your sense of humanity and your commitment to public service. But ah i I just love that story and and hearing about the lengths that you went to to try and and get this family out and and to safety is is really an inspiration. Yeah.
Speaker: So I want to ask a little bit about the memorial scholarship that you established in honor of your late wife. It's the Charlotte K. Gall Endowed Memorial Scholarship.
Speaker: And it is, as I mentioned, in honor of your your wife your late wife of 46 years, ah who you mentioned you met at law school at Rutgers Law School. ah Can you tell us what the scholarship means to you and and why you established it in Charlotte's name?
Speaker: When Charlotte went to Rutgers, she was receiving financial assistance. and she was the class of 74 was ah class that had the largest population of female law students, I think 45% of my class was was female, which was very unusual at the time.
Speaker: Remarkable for that time. And um so she had financial assistance and obviously, you know, she went through, I think I've told you as a, as a lawyer, she and broke through a lot of glass, a lot of glass ceilings, had to deal with a lot of, you know female, anti-female discrimination, not just but from lawyers, but from the bench, particularly from the bench.
Speaker: In fact, she became the first female assistant county prosecutor in Camden County. And the bench was all white, all male, and very unhospitable.
Speaker: in I mean, she was called honey, sweetie, girly, prosecutrix. Wow. And it was tough. I'm sure you can appreciate it. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I decided, you know, she she had been the beneficiary of financials.
Speaker: assistance when she went to law school. And I thought that a fitting tribute would be to establish a scholarship, establish a scholarship in her name to provide financial assistance to female law students at Rutgers Camden.
Speaker: And that that's really the but basis and the reason for it. It's remarkable. and And I'm so glad that you chose to honor her in that way. ah I want to talk about another recent gift that you've given to the law school. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate your willingness to give back to Rutgers.
Speaker: ah but But recently, you established the Stephen M. Orlovsky Endowed Appellate Advocacy Fund at Rutgers Law. can you Can you tell us a little bit about what motivated you to so to start that fund?
Speaker: Two things. It was first to give it back to Rutgers. what it gave to me, life in the law.
Speaker: Those of us who were returning as veterans were not welcomed home.
Speaker: There were no parades.
Speaker: Dean Fairbanks
Speaker: little welcomed me back in his own way. right you know I got a great legal education that gave me the opportunity to go on to become a federal judge, practice law at a major national law firm at a high level.
Speaker: And none of that would have happened but for Rutgers.
Speaker: That's the first reason. The second reason is given the situation in which our country finds us, it's more important than ever to defend and protect the constitution and the rule of law than ever.
Speaker: And more than ever, that happens in appellate courts. Trial courts are very important and Rutgers and many law schools have very active trial advocacy programs and they should continue to do that.
Speaker: But it's becoming more important to those of us in the practice how important appellate advocacy is. Many clients now insist in important trials to have appellate lawyers involved in the trial process to make sure that issues ah issues are preserved for appeal and that, you know, then they can't win in the trial court, that they have an opportunity to prevail in the appellate court.
Speaker: And the other thing is, you know, our country is approach approaching its 250th anniversary.
Speaker: And for years and years,
Speaker: the judicial, the Supreme Court, the judicial branch as the third branch, of our government has been viewed as the jewel in the crown of our democracy. That has been called into question recently.
Speaker: Now over the years, the Supreme Court has handed down some brilliant decisions and some horrible decisions. We can begin with Marbury versus Madison. We can talk about Dredstock.
Speaker: We can talk about Plessy v. Ferguson. We can talk about Brown versus Board of Education, Gideon v. Wainwright. the Miranda case.
Speaker: You've read the cases that have come down from the Supreme Court. We now have a new concept to deal with called the shadow docket, which is another challenge for appellate advocates.
Speaker: So it's more important than other to train our lawyers about appellate advocy advocacy and get lawyers to specialize in appellate advocacy, just as they specialize in trial practice or patent law or whatever law interests them.
Speaker: And i just so think I just think that the time is right and it's important. And Rutgers has the tools to do it. And i have complete confidence in you, Dean Bond, that you will manage this program and make a success of Well, thank you so much, Judge, for for saying that and for your confidence in me.
Speaker: I am thrilled that we're going to be able to build upon our existing appellate advocacy program and expand and and improve the skills training that we're offering to students. Because as you said, this is one of the most essential skills for lawyers. And and we we want to be training them um to to have a huge impact on the law in all the ways that that you and I have talked about. ah It matters more now than ever.
Speaker: ah So I'm thrilled and I so appreciate your your generosity towards Rutgers Law. I want to end asking you what advice you would give to students who aspire to pursue a career in law.
Speaker: what What advice would you give? At bottom, I became a lawyer because I wanted to make a difference in the people.
Speaker: And I have both as a judge and as a lawyer, and even as even as a former military officer. And the law is gives you a vehicle and an opportunity to do that.
Speaker: It doesn't matter what your political affiliation is or what your view of certain issues is. If you become a lawyer, we'll give you the skills to advocate and promote whatever policy is important, to support whatever group, whether it be political, racial, ethnic, religious, is important to you.
Speaker: Because what differentiates us, our country, from the rest of the world is the rule of law. And that is why I urge people to consider law as a profession.
Speaker: Wow. Well said, Judge. You and I are kindred spirits in that way. That is exactly what drew me to to law school as well. This notion that that law was a way to have ah a positive impact on the world.
Speaker: up So thank you so much for those comments. and And thank you again for appearing with us today and for sharing your wisdom and and for sharing the details about your incredibly distinguished career.
Speaker: um As I said before, we are so lucky to to call you one of our alumni, and and I really appreciate everything that you have done and continue to do for Rutgers Law School.
Speaker: Thank you. Thank you so much for having It my pleasure. Take care, Judge. The Power of Attorney is a production of Rutgers Law School. With two locations just minutes from New York City and Philadelphia, Rutgers Law offers the prestige and reputation of a large nationally known university with a personal small campus experience.
Speaker: Learn more by visiting us at law.rutgers.edu.
