Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings

Honorable Chief Judge Roberto Velez
In January 2002, Mayor Bloomberg appointed Roberto Velez to serve as chief judge to the NYC Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH). Chief Judge Velez supervises eleven administrative law judges and oversees a budget of $3.8 million. During his tenure, Chief Judge Velez created the Center for Mediation Services, the first City entity responsible for mediating workplace disputes and training managers on conflict management skills; he also established the Administrative Judicial Institute, the first centralized training center for all 500 City administrative law judges. Chief Judge Velez co-promulgated the first ethics code for the City's administrative law judges. In 2005, he was appointed to serve as a board member of NYS Ethics Commission for the Unified Court System.

Prior to OATH, Chief Judge Velez worked at the NYC Department of Probation - first as its chief of staff, where he assisted the commissioner with the oversight of agency operations, which included a staff of 1,600 employees and an annual budget of over $70 million dollars; then as its general counsel, where he supervised at criminal and civil litigations; and subsequently as its commissioner, where he supervised approximately 90,000 adult probationers and 25,000 juveniles annually. During his tenure at the Department of Probation, he promoted public safety by initiating Operation Neighborhood Shield, a crime reduction, neighborhood-building initiative that targeted high crime precincts.

Chief Judge Velez has also held the following positions in the private and public sector; partner at the law firm of Anderson Kill Olick & Oshinsky, P.C.; assistant executive director of The Door - A Center of Alternatives, Inc.; chief of staff at the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice; and assistant commissioner at the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Chief Judge Velez received his J.D. from NYU School of Law in 1989, where he was a member of the editorial staff for the Review of Law and Social Change; Board of Governors, Student Bar Association Steering Committee, and LALSA. He received his B.A. from Columbia College in 1984.

Judge C. McFaul Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge Charles D. McFaul has served as an Administrative Law Judge at OATH since 1979. Judge McFaul currently serves as the principal planner and developer of OATH's Center for Mediation Services. Before joining OATH, he worked as a court planner with the Office of Court Administration and as an Assistant Corporation Counsel with the Law Department. He holds a law degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hofstra University. Judge McFaul is a member of the American Bar Association's Judicial Administration Division and its National Conference of Administrative Law Judges, as well as the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He has served on a Task Force for Public Dispute Resolution.

John B. Spooner was appointed to the position of Administrative Law Judge at OATH in 1989. Judge Spooner has also managed OATH's technology systems since 1995, and is founder and the current chair of RecTech, a committee of the technology staffs of the eight agencies located at 40 Rector Street. RecTech recently received the 2002 Excellence in Technology Award for Best IT Collaboration from DoITT and the 2003 Citizens Budget Commission Public Service Innovation Award. Judge Spooner clerked for two years with Judge James F. Battin of the U.S. District Court in Billings, Montana and then he worked for two years at Grand and Ostrow, a private law firm specializing in criminal defense, and for three years for the Criminal Appeals Bureau of the Legal Aid Society. Judge Spooner joined City service in 1987, working as a hearing officer for the New York City Loft Board. He was subsequently promoted to the position of associate counsel. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Montana and a Master of Arts degree in English Literature from Purdue University. He received his law degree from the University of Montana School of Law in 1980, where he wrote two law review articles and served as an editor for the law review.

Kara J. miller was appointed to the position of Administrative Law Judge in November 2003. Prior to this appointment she served as OATH'S Managing Attorney for three years. She has worked as an Assistant Chief Administrative Law Judge for the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, an Impartial Hearing Officer for the New York City Board of Education for special education hearings, and an Administrative Law Judge for the New York City Parking Violations Bureau. In addition to working as a litigation associate at a small Manhattan law firm, Judge miller has worked in the private sector as a Client Manager for a professional sports representation agency and as the Assistant to the Chairman/In-House Counsel for a steel distribution company. She is a graduate of Union College, George Washington University's School of Law and Fordham University's Graduate School of Business Administration. Judge miller is an Adjunct Professor in the Business Law Department of Fordham University's Graduate School of Business Administration where she teaches Business Law and Marketing and the Law.

Tynia D. Richard was appointed to the position of Administrative Law Judge at OATH in January 2003. She was an Assistant Attorney General at the New York State Attorney General’s Office from 1997 to January 2003, with stints in the Civil Rights Bureau and the Charities Bureau. Judge Richard was an associate at Cooper, Liebowitz, Royster & Wright in Elmsford, New York from 1994 to 1997. She was a senior staff attorney at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc., from 1991 to 1993. After law school, she clerked for one year, 1990-1991, for Judge Constance Baker Motley in the United States District Court in the Southern District of New York. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration at Washington University in St. Louis in 1984 and a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1990. During law school she clerked for Judge Leon Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in the summer of 1988. In the summer of 1989, she served as a Human Rights Intern for the Legal Resource Center in Zimbabwe.

Kevin Casey was appointed to the position of Administrative Law Judge in November 2004. He was previously a supervising attorney with the Criminal Appeals Bureau of The Legal Aid Society in New York. For several years he was also a volunteer with the Equal Justice Initiative, an organization that provides legal representation to indigent defendants in Alabama. He is a graduate of Brooklyn Law School and Fordham University's College of Business Administration. Prior to becoming a lawyer, he was a CPA at a large accounting firm and he was a forensic accountant in the Rackets Bureau of the Kings County District Attorney's Office.

Faye Lewis was appointed to the position of an Administrative Law Judge at OATH in 1991. Prior to that, she was an associate at the law firm of Obermaier, Morvillo and Abramowitz, and then she served as an Assistant Attorney General in the labor bureau of the New York State Department of Law. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Princeton University and her law degree from New York University School of Law.

Raymond E. Kramer received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Virginia in 1975 and his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1978. He was appointed to the position of Administrative Law Judge at OATH in 1985. Currently, Judge Kramer serves as the Supervising ALJ for both the Center for Mediation Services and for OATH's Administrative Judicial Institute. He is also an experienced mediator, who has mediated family court matters in the past and who serves as one of the Center's mediators. Additionally, he co-teaches the mediation and advanced mediation clinics at New York University Law School.

Prior to his tenure at OATH, he spent one year as a VISTA volunteer attorney with the Statewide Youth Advocacy Project in Rochester, New York, and then joined the Juvenile Rights Division of the Legal Aid Society of New York, where he worked as a trial attorney in the Bronx Family Court for four years. In 1983, he was named to the clinical faculty at New York University Law School, where he taught the Juvenile Rights Clinic for two years. Judge Kramer is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where he has served as a member of the Children's Law Committee and the Administrative Law Committee. He is also a member of the National Association of Administrative Law Judges.

Joan R. Salzman was previously Deputy Executive Director and Chief of Enforcement at the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board. Prior to her City government service, she clerked for the Hon. José A. Cabranes, then a U.S. District Judge for the District of Connecticut (now a Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit), and was subsequently in private practice as a litigator with Hughes Hubbard & Reed. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, Ms. Salzman has written and lectured extensively on enforcement of ethics laws, administrative procedure, and conflicts of interest. She is the author of a chapter of a book entitled Ethical Standards in the Public Sector, a Guide for Government Lawyers, Clients, and Public Officials, published by the American Bar Association in 1999, and of a chapter in Government Ethics and Law Enforcement, Toward Global Guidelines (Praeger) (2000), an international text on government ethics. Her work has also appeared in The New York Law Journal and The Chief Leader. She has also written or co-written several of the Board's educational videotapes and educational games, including two mock ethics trials, all in conjunction with New York City's Crosswalks Television. From 2001-2004, Ms. Salzman served as Chair of the Government Ethics Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York (ABCNY), and is currently a member of the ABCNY Litigation Committee. From 1986 to 1989, Ms. Salzman served as Secretary of the ABCNY Committee on Municipal Affairs.

Alessandra F. Zorgniotti was appointed as an Administrative Law Judge in February 2006. Judge Zorgniotti comes to OATH from the New York City Office of Collective Bargaining where she was the Deputy General Counsel. Prior to that, she was an Assistant Corporation Counsel at the Law Department from 1996 to 2001. She graduated from the School of Law at SUNY Buffalo and clerked at the Appellate Division, Fourth Department in Rochester, N.Y. from 1994 to 1996. Judge Zorgniotti is an active member on the Labor and Employment Law Committee of the New York City Bar Association. Before going to law school, Judge Zorgniotti worked in the classical music field as Performance Manager at the Metropolitan Opera Association and as the Executive Assistant to Opera Singer Marilyn Horne. Judge Zorgniotti was in the Arts Administration Masters Program at Columbia University, and received her B.A. in English and Foreign Literature from Lewis and Clark College

Julio Rodriguez III was appointed to the position of Administrative Law Judge at OATH in October 2006. Judge Rodriguez comes to OATH from the New York City Department of Investigation where he served as an Examining Attorney from 2002 until his promotion to Deputy Inspector General in 2004. In 2006, he was appointed Inspector General for the Department of Juvenile Justice. Judge Rodriguez also worked as an Assistant District Attorney at the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1998 to 2002. He prosecuted cases in one of the Office's trial bureaus and was assigned to the domestic violence unit. Judge Rodriguez received his Bachelor of Science degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and his law degree from Temple Law School.

Ingrid Addison was appointed to a five-year term as an OATH Administrative Law Judge on November 5, 2007. Judge Addison was most recently Deputy Director and senior attorney with the Padlock & Sign Enforcement Unit of the Department of Buildings, where she worked for five years. She previously has served as a court attorney with a New York City Civil Court judge for approximately one year and also worked in private practice. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree with Honors in Public Administration and Law from the University of the West Indies in 1986 and a Masters of Business Administration in Financial Management from Pace University in 1988. After working as the Assistant Director of a federally-funded, not-for-profit organization in Brooklyn for approximately five years, she enrolled at the City University School of Law at Queens College from which she obtained her Juris Doctor in 1998.

OATH's administrative law judges are full time managerial employees appointed by the chief administrative law judge. In addition to the chief administrative law judge, there are now eleven administrative law judges. The Charter provides that OATH's judges are appointed to five-year terms of office and may be removed only for cause, after a hearing. They may be re-appointed. OATH's administrative law judges are subject to the same Code of Judicial Conduct as are the judges of the New York State Unified Court System. This means, among other things, that all political activity is strictly prohibited, and judges may not engage in the practice of law or any other activity deemed inconsistent with their judicial positions.

The judges are selected after an extensive recruitment process, including broad outreach for lawyers reflecting the diverse makeup of the city, a rigorous review of credentials, skills and abilities, and a decision writing competition. Thus, the judges are graduates of some of the nation's finest law schools, including Harvard, New York University and Columbia. They possess a varied background of legal experience, including practice in civil, criminal and administrative law derived from both the private and public sectors. Although the Charter requires the judges to have been attorneys for five years, they presently average more than twenty years experience as lawyers.

OATH's administrative law judges are called upon to fulfill important decision-making roles in city government. OATH's judges must know, interpret and apply policies and directives for many different agencies; and, to some extent, they make policy in their decisions. Individual and corporate interests are significantly and directly affected by the decisions made by OATH's judges.