Judge Bios

Robert D. Okun will be sworn in as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on Friday, November 8, 2013 at 4 p.m. in the third-floor atrium of the Moultrie Courthouse, 500 Indiana Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. The Honorable Lee F. Satterfield, Chief Judge, will preside, and the Honorable Frank E. Schwelb, Senior Judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, will administer the oath of office.

Robert D. Okun will be sworn in as an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on Friday, November 8, 2013 at 4 p.m. in the third-floor atrium of the Moultrie Courthouse, 500 Indiana Avenue, NW, Washington, DC. The Honorable Lee F. Satterfield, Chief Judge, will preside, and the Honorable Frank E. Schwelb, Senior Judge, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, will administer the oath of office.
Mr. Okun was born in Great Neck, New York, and raised in Old Bethpage, New York, where he graduated from high school in 1977. Mr. Okun received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981, and received his Juris Doctor degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1984.
Following his graduation from law school, Mr. Okun was a law clerk for Judge Schwelb, then an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, serving in both the Domestic Relations and Misdemeanor branches of the Court. From 1985 to 1987, Mr. Okun was an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission, serving in the Office of Policy and Evaluation for the Bureau of Consumer Protection, where he oversaw investigations and litigation concerning false and deceptive trade practices. From 1987 to 1989, Mr. Okun served as a trial attorney for the Fraud Section of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he prosecuted fraud committed against the federal government, primarily under the civil False Claims Act.
Mr. Okun joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia in 1989, where he prosecuted a wide variety of felony and misdemeanor cases in both Superior Court and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Mr. Okun left the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1992 to become a freelance writer (having previously written an episode for the television show “Family Ties”), but returned to the practice of law approximately a year later when he joined the Office of Consumer Litigation of the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he prosecuted both civil and criminal violations of various consumer protection statutes.
In 1997, Mr. Okun returned to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and shortly thereafter became chief of the Special Proceedings Division, where, for approximately 15 years, he supervised the division that responds to all post-conviction motions filed in Superior Court and U.S. District Court, including motions to vacate convictions, motions for post-conviction DNA testing, motions filed under the Sex Offender Registration Act, motions filed by defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity, and petitions for writs of habeas corpus. During his tenure at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Okun also served as the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for Operations, where he helped oversee the Office’s litigating divisions and victim-witness unit, and as Special Counsel to the U.S. Attorney for Professional Development and Legal Policy, where he oversaw the Office’s professional development program and represented the Office on numerous court and criminal justice committees. In addition, Mr. Okun served as one of the Office’s ethics and professional responsibility officers for many years, advising Assistant U.S. Attorneys on ethical issues and questions involving the Rules of Professional Conduct. Finally, Mr. Okun was instrumental in helping draft numerous pieces of legislation while he was at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including the Innocence Protection Act, the Incompetent Defendants Criminal Commitment Act, and the Criminal Record Sealing Act.
During his tenure at the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Okun received numerous awards, including the John Marshall Award for Providing Legal Advice, which was given to him by the Attorney General of the United States for his efforts in providing guidance concerning the retroactive changes to the crack cocaine sentencing guidelines used in federal court.
Mr. Okun has been a member of many court committees, including the Superior Court Criminal Rules Advisory Committee, the Superior Court Pre-trial Mental Examination Committee, the Superior Court Ad Hoc Committee to Consider Formation of a Criminal Justice Reform Commission, and the U.S. District Court Advisory Committee on Pro Se Litigation. Mr. Okun also has been an active member of the District of Columbia Bar, serving on the Board of Governors, as the Chair of the Judicial Evaluation Committee, and as a member of the Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee. Mr. Okun also served, for several years, as the chair of a hearing committee for the Board on Professional Responsibility, where he presided over hearings involving alleged attorney misconduct.
Mr. Okun has taught classes on white-collar crime and legal reasoning at American University and, for more than a decade, taught classes on civic responsibility to fifth-grade students at several District of Columbia public schools. In addition, Mr. Okun is a member of the Runnymede Singers, a singing group that performs at nursing homes and churches in Washington, D.C.

Note: The ceremony was originally scheduled to take place on October 4, 2013 but was rescheduled for November 8, 2013. Judge Okun’s biol ran in both the Oct. 2 and Nov. 7 papers.