Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Stein was a New York Army National Guard from 1969 to 1975.
Stein was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 17, 1995, and received his commission the same day.
[3] In 2005, Judge Stein found that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s attempts to investigate national banks was subject to federal preemption by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
[3] Sitting with the Ninth Circuit, in two environmental rulings on February 4, 2022, Stein wrote regarding the Forest Service's commercial "thinning" of areas by cutting down trees.
Stein would have ruled against the Forest Service's move to cut down trees in both cases, and his view was prevalent in one.