The Hon. Robert G. Main, Jr. served as Franklin County judge, surrogate, Family Court judge, and acting supreme court justice from 1988 through his retirement in 2021. In semi-retirement, Judge Main is acting as a justice of the Malone Town Court. He is a native of Malone and graduated from Franklin Academy in Malone. He received his degree from Middlebury College, with a major in political science, and he obtained his doctorate from the Albany Law School of Union University. He was an attorney in private practice until assuming the bench.
For many years, Judge Main served as a member of the Law Guardian Advisory Committee of the Appellate Division, Third Department. He served as a member of the curriculum committee for the continuing education of Family Court Judges. He is a member, and former co-chair, of the Chief Judge’s Tribal Courts Committee and is a co-chair of its Native American Bail Review Project.
Judge Main has been a member of the Franklin County Bar Association and the New York State Bar Association. He’s also a member of New York State Surrogates, County Judges, Family Court Judges, and Acting Supreme Court Justices associations. He served for 20 years as the president of the Farrar Home, an assisted living facility in Malone. He is a member of the Academic Board of Trustees of Franklin Academy and a trustee of Morningside Cemetery. A communicant of St. Andre Bessette Roman Catholic Parish in Malone, he is a commissioned lay minister, lector and Eucharistic minister. He has served as a parish trustee and twice on the parish counsel. He is a former member of the pastoral council of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ogdensburg and its long-range planning committee.