He also served in the United States Army from 1966 until 1970, spending time in Vietnam.
He went into private practice in Cherry Hill Township, New Jersey from 1980 to 1995, when he became a United States District Judge.
On May 25, 2000, President Clinton nominated Orlofsky to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to replace Judge Morton Ira Greenberg, who had announced plans to take senior status.
On February 19, 2003, Orlofsky announced that he was resigning from the bench to return to private practice at his former firm, Blank Rome LLP.
[4] In an article that appeared in the Cherry Hill Courier-Post on February 20, 2003, Orlofsky told the paper that he wasn't bitter about being denied a spot on the Third Circuit.