Ira Sorkin - Education and Career

Education and Career

Sorkin grew up in Manhasset, NY and graduated from Manhasset High School in 1961. He was president of his senior class, starting center on the football team and the star shot-put of the track and field team. He received his B.A. from Tulane University in 1965 and his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School in 1968.

Sorkin is currently a member of Lowenstein Sandler, a New Jersey based law firm. He was partner at Dickstein Shapiro, a large American law firm. He was a summer intern in the federal prosecutor's office in Manhattan in 1967. He spent three years as a staff lawyer in the New York office of the Securities and Exchange Commission and five years as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan. In 1976, he became a defense attorney.

He returned to the S.E.C. in May 1984–86 as its New York regional administrator.

I tried 15 cases in 11 months .... In those days, we tried everything — stolen mail cases, food stamp cases. These days, if you're prosecutor for five years, you might get to try five cases.

One of his first private clients was Rupert Murdoch in the law firm of Howard Squadron, Theodore Ellenoff and Stanley Plesent. When the firm was sold, he joined Dickstein Shapiro. On November 8, 2010, Mr. Sorkin left Dickstein Shapiro along with four other lawyers to join New Jersey based law firm Lowenstein Sandler as a partner.

Sorkin defended Monzer al-Kassar, a Syrian convicted in November 2008 of supplying arms to undercover agents posing as anti-American terrorists.