SPORKIN, STANLEY

SPORKIN, STANLEY (1932– ), U.S. federal judge. Born in Philadelphia, Sporkin received his bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1953 and graduated from Yale Law School in 1957. After a clerkship with a presiding justice in the U.S. District Court, Sporkin entered private practice in 1960. In 1961 he began a 20-year career with the Securities and Exchange Commission, first as a staff attorney; he became chief attorney for the SEC Enforcement Bureau in 1963. In 1968 he became an associate director and from 1973 to 1981 served as the director of the SEC Division of Enforcement. He taught as an adjunct professor at Antioch Law School from 1974 to 1981 and at Howard University in 1981. Sporkin became general counsel for the Central Intelligence Agency in 1981, serving under Director William Casey during the Iran Contra era. In 1985 President Ronald Reagan appointed him as a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Sporkin ruled in several notable cases, including an early settlement between the Justice Department's Antitrust Division and Microsoft Corporation. In 1995 he rejected a proposed settlement between the parties as too narrow and potentially ineffective in reducing Microsoft's monopolistic practices. His ruling was overturned by a panel of three federal appeals judges. Sporkin served on the bench until his retirement in 2000, when he joined the firm of Weil, Gotshal, and Genges as partner and counseled parties in corporate governance and litigation matters, acted as an arbitrator, and provided mediation services. He contributed numerous articles to professional journals. In his long career of public service, Sporkin received numerous awards and honors. In 1976 he received the National Civil Service League's Special Achievement Award and in 1978 the Rockefeller Award for Public Service from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. In 1979 he was the recipient of the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service, the highest honor that can be granted to a member of the federal service. In 1994 Sporkin received the William O. Douglas Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Association of Securities and Exchange Commission Alumni, and in 1996 he was presented the H. Carl Moultrie Award for Judicial Excellence by the Trial Lawyers of Washington, D.C. In 2000 he received the Federal Bar Association's Tom C. Clark Award. That same year he received the Judicial Excellence Award from Judicial Watch. (Dorothy Bauhoff (2nd ed.)