Joseph Patrick Lieb

Who was Joseph Patrick Lieb?

Joseph Patrick Lieb was an American lawyer and judge.

Lieb was born in Faribault, Minnesota. He graduated from Georgetown University Law School with an LL.B. in 1924.

Lieb served as a Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent from 1925 to 1931. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida from 1931 to 1934 and was in private practice in Tampa, Florida from 1934 to 1955.

Lieb received a recess appointment by Dwight D. Eisenhower on August 13, 1955, to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, to a seat vacated by John W. Holland. Eisenhower nominated Lieb to the court on January 12, 1956. Confirmed by the Senate on March 1, 1956, he received commission the next day.

Lieb was reassigned to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida on October 29, 1962. He served as chief judge from 1966 to 1971.

On the bench "Lieb presided over the first desegregation of Pinellas schools and two other counties. He scrupulously followed the lead of higher federal courts when school desegregation cases began to come his way in the middle 1960s, even though his decisions were sometimes at odds with his own conservative leanings."