Robert Dorf, Esq.
I have had a varied lifetime career experience which has ranged from radio announcer in the United States Virgin Islands to United States Administrative Law Judge for the Social Security Administration from 2005 to 2018, where I was assigned to the Manhattan Hearing Office at 26 Federal Plaza.
I have been married for over fifty years to my wife, Wendy R. Dorf, and have two grown children living in New York and California as well as four grandchildren.
I was born in New York City in 1943 during World War II and then moved to Miami Beach, Florida in 1947. My family and I returned to New York in 1950 to live in Long Island. In 1956 we relocated a second time to Florida where I attended high school at Coral Gables High (Miami) and college at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
After graduation from the University of Florida in the summer of 1964, I worked in the United State Virgin Islands as a fulltime radio announcer for radio station WIVI at Christiansted, St. Croix until Spring 1965 when I volunteered for the draft and joined the US Army. In the Army I was stationed in Georgia, South Carolina and Stuttgart, Germany, and worked as a radio teletype operator and German language speaker for US Army.
In 1967 I was discharged from active duty and then lived in Paris, France where I studied French and worked as a student intern for Reuters News Service. I was also employed as a part-time English language announcer for French radio.
From 1967 to 1971 I was assigned to inactive reserve duty for the Army and was honorably discharged in 1971.
In late 1967 I returned to the US and lived in Washington DC for a short time where I was a student intern doing film editing and photography work for WMAL Television. I then moved back to New York City where met my wife and worked as an addiction treatment counselor for Beth Israel Hospital in the Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program assigned to Harlem Hospital until beginning Brooklyn Law School in 1969.
I attended Brooklyn Law School on a full tuition scholarship and graduated in June, 1972. During law school summers I was employed as an intern for the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office and then at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
I was admitted to practice on January 30, 1973, in the First Department.
From 1973 to 1976 I worked as an Assistant District Attorney for the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office under District Attorneys Burton B. Roberts and Mario Merola, both deceased, where I was assigned to the general trial division and also as an investigator and prosecutor at the Riker’s Island New York City prison complex.
In 1976 I left the DA’s Office and entered the private (general) practice of law, with emphasis on personal injury and criminal defense. While in private practice from 1976 to 1994, I also worked part time as an arbitrator for the Civil Court of the City of New York and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. I also was employed on a part time basis as a Hearing Officer for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Additionally, during this time I taught business law at Medgar Evers College and the Sarah Schenirer Institute in Brooklyn.
From 1995 to 2005 I worked as a Law Secretary to a judge for the Supreme Court, Kings County, the Hon. James G. Starkey, in the Criminal and Civil Terms of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Kings County, Brooklyn.
From 2005 to 2018 I was appointed as a United States Administrative Law Judge for the Social Security Administration in Manhattan and presided over numerous hearings related to claims under the United States Social Security Act.
On January 1, 2019, I reentered private practice and presently perform per diem legal work on a part-time basis as well as assist in tax preparation work for the Internal Revenue Service’s volunteer income tax assistance (VITA) program for Nazareth Houses on the Lower East Side.
I am admitted to practice in the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as well as the United States Supreme Court.
I have also published two legal articles : (1) Touro Law Review, 1996 : “Use and the Irresistible Impulse to Legislate” and (2) For the Association of United States Administrative Law Judges’ 2016 San Diego Conference : “Toward a Restatement of Social Security Disability.”
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