Rodney William Sippel (born July 26, 1956) is a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

of the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri (in case citations, E.D. Mo.) is a trial level federal district court based in St. Louis, Missouri, with jurisdiction over fifty counties in the eastern half of Missouri. The ...

and of the

United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri The United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri (in case citations, W.D. Mo.) is the federal judicial district encompassing 66 counties in the western half of the State of Missouri. The Court is based in the Charles Evans ...

Education and career

Sippel was born in

Jefferson City, Missouri Jefferson City, informally Jeff City, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Missouri. It had a population of 43,228 at the 2020 United States census, ranking as the List of cities in Missouri, 16th most popu ...

. He received a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

degree from

University of Tulsa The University of Tulsa (TU) is a Private university, private research university in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has a historic affiliation with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Presbyterian Church, although it is now nondenominational, and the campus ...

in 1978, and a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

from

Washington University School of Law The Washington University School of Law (WashU Law) is the law school of Washington University in St. Louis, a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri. Founded in 1867, it is the oldest continuously operating law school west of the ...

in 1981. He lived in

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis ( , sometimes referred to as St. Louis City, Saint Louis or STL) is an Independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It lies near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Miss ...

and practiced law there, except for a period when he was an

administrative assistant A person responsible for providing various kinds of administrative assistance is called an administrative assistant (admin assistant) or sometimes an administrative support specialist. In most instances it is identical to the modern iteration of th ...

to Representative Richard A. Gephardt from 1993 to 1995.

Federal judicial service

On May 15, 1997, Sippel was nominated by President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

to serve as a United States district judge of the

United States District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district. Each district cov ...

s for both the

Eastern Eastern or Easterns may refer to: Transportation Airlines *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 192 ...

and Western District of Missouri, to a seat vacated by Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. He was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

on November 8, 1997, and received his commission on November 12, 1997. He assumed senior status on January 28, 2023. He served as chief judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri from January 4, 2016, to December 16, 2022. In spite of his joint appointment, Sippel maintains chambers and hears cases only in the Eastern District of Missouri.

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sippel, Rodney W. 1956 births Living people 20th-century American judges 20th-century American lawyers 21st-century American judges Judges of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Lawyers from St. Louis People from Jefferson City, Missouri United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton University of Tulsa alumni Washington University School of Law alumni