JUDGE MICHAEL H. SCHOENFELD

Michael H. Schoenfeld, an Administrative Law Judge of the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (Review Commission), died after a tragic accident on October 11, 2004, agency Chairman W. Scott Railton and Chief Administrative Law Judge Irving Sommer regretfully announced on October 12, 2004.

“Judge Schoenfeld faithfully served the cause of occupational safety and health as an administrative law judge. We will deeply miss him both as a colleague, a judge and as a friend,” Chairman Railton said.

Judge Schoenfeld began his Federal career as a staff attorney at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after graduating with a Juris Doctor from the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C. in 1969. A native New Yorker, he earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Vermont in Burlington, Vermont in 1966.

He joined the Review Commission in 1972, about a year after the agency opened for business in 1971. He served the agency as a staff attorney for one its first three Commissioners, Alan F. Burch. He then served Commissioner Timothy F. Cleary as a staff attorney and later became Associate General Counsel for the Review Commission. He left the agency in 1981 to become an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for the Social Security Administration. From 1985 until 1989, he served as an ALJ for the U.S. Department of Labor and rejoined the Review Commission in May 1989 as an ALJ, where he worked at the time of his death.

He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Kathleen McMillan, a brother, nieces, nephews, other family members and a host of friends.