James Orenstein

Wow - his nearly 16 year reign of terror is over - I just read on the internet that he retired . However I believe he was not reinstated. As far as his judicial temperament,He was the worst judge, and usually defamed parties he didn’t like. Extremely obnoxious and petty and immature , I’ve never seen anything like it. This Magistrate seemed to wield more power than the District Judges as they all deferred to him and never overruled him. But to his credit, I believe the EDNY did lose a good judge, this man was thee smartest judge in the building, great at resolving cases, did try to respect Constitutional rights. While he was verbally abusive and hostile, he was a decent judge when it came to motion practice. The only good judge left at EDNY is Judge Block, otherwise that Courthouse is full of unqualified gashes.

This Judge magistrate must have some type of personality complex as he absolutely the worst judge in any court on our country.

Mixed opinion = Yes his judicial temperament is abominable but to be fair , he seems to suffer from multi personality disorder and black robe disease , I can’t say he is alwaysssss insufferable, when he’s on his meds, he’s somewhat tolerable! You never know what to expect with him. While I agree with every negative comment on here, I want to piggyback on novel comment made on this thread that only 1 attorney noticed - with Orenstein conducting discovery, he is peculiarly unique in the fact that he loves granting Novel bigus totally fringe-like discovery motions that may have some basis in law and maybe 1 other rogue district judge granted a similar theory in another circuit. He doesn’t follow Controlling Second Circuit Case law, he likes to invent his owns case law and be regarded as a legal maverick (read the articles he authors) . So after I noticed this legal quirk of his In granting these legally Novel discovery motions, I started filing discovery motions based on really bogus fringelike legal theories, and he finally starting granting my discovery motions. Before that, when I filed only vanilla , garden variety , discovery motions he never granted them, the kinkier, and more salacious discovery motions I filed, the more likely he granted them and granted them without a hearing. He gets off on being a legal maverick and loves quirks, and kinks and toys and I can see me being into BDSM. Get kinky with him ! The kinkier and more Novel your discovery motions are- the more he will love them! But make sure your kinky motions are well argued and have at least connect some legal theory to make it seem like he is so cutting edge and breaking new legal ground. A wise mentor taught me : “you don’t win at trial, you win in discovery.” If Judge Orenstein is your Judge, you can’t win with vanilla missionary position on motions, you have to Get freaky and kinky with your motions or they won’t be granted. I promise this works with him otherwise you will be de

Let’s start with the good , he moves cases along, he hates stale claims lingering for years, and is quit entertaining to say the least , he is a real great piece of work ! The truth is he runs a shoddy settlement factory that operates in the shadow of the law, neither side really gets to litigate and there can’t be an appeal Bc neither side has any discovery to appeal on , all discovery motions will be denied to plaintiff, makes credibility decisions at every hearing, openly demonstrates biases, verbally abuses victims, creates issues that don’t exist because he loves drama, then forces settlements on high value claims for low 5 figures to clear his docket and neither side can object Bc neither of you have any discovery and he refuses to open discovery and then forecloses any opportunity to go to trial.in his courtroom, he is the dictator and you have no legal arguments, FRCP don’t exist and neither does Supreme Court or any Appeals Court decisions. He exerts too much power and control over your case and he never acts as an impartial judge but rather an insurance adjuster who wants both sides to settle for cheapest amount. Don’t ever consent to him being your Judge if you have a meritorious case, the settlement he allows you to have will not even cover your legal fees and you will be financially devasted as a result of filing a meritorious lawsuit and then when you appeal - the Appeals Court doesn’t understand what exactly happened Bc nothing happened besides this forced settlement that isn’t in the record. His courtroom isn’t law, it’s a back alley case abortion clinic where your claims are the fetus and he’s the hanger killing your fetus(claims) before they ever saw the light of day .