Leslie H. Southwick

In August 2018, Southwick found that the Texas Medical Board was entitled to qualified immunity for its unconstitutional warrantless search of a doctor's patient records, drawing an unusual concurrence dubitante from Circuit Judge Don Willett.

His first published opinion for the Fifth Circuit was Anthony v. United States, which was released on March 4, 2008. Southwick wrote for a unanimous three judge panel on an issue involving the valuation of private annuities for estate tax purposes. His first published dissent was in Louisiana ex rel. Caldwell v. Allstate Insurance Co., 536 F.3d 418 (5th Cir. 2008) in which Southwick dissented from the assumption of federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act.

Southwick was nominated on January 9, 2007 by President George W. Bush to fill a seat on the Fifth Circuit vacated by recess-appointed Judge Charles W. Pickering, who retired at the end of 2004 because he could not overcome a filibuster launched against him by Senate Democrats. Previously, Bush had nominated Mississippi attorney Michael B. Wallace in the 109th Congress to replace Pickering, but his nomination also became stalled due to fierce opposition from Senate Democrats. Upon the Democratic takeover of Congress in the November 2006 elections, Wallace asked President Bush not to re-nominate him in the 110th Congress.

The Senate Judiciary Committee of the 110th Congress held a hearing on Southwick's nomination to the Fifth Circuit on May 10, 2007. The hearing was chaired by Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse. Just prior to the hearing, controversy arose over the nomination.

After intense Democratic opposition, Southwick was reported out of Committee by a 10-9 vote on August 2, 2007 when Democratic California Senator Dianne Feinstein voted with the Committee's nine Republicans to send Southwick to the full Senate with a favorable report. Southwick was confirmed by a vote of 59-38 on October 24, 2007. Southwick's confirmation came almost ten months after his nomination to the Fifth Circuit and over a year after he was first nominated to a federal judgeship. Southwick was the fifth judge nominated by Bush to the Fifth Circuit and confirmed by the United States Senate.

Southwick was sworn in as judge of the Fifth Circuit on October 30, 2007. He maintains chambers in Jackson, Mississippi.

Finding itself without a nominee to a judgeship that had already sat vacant for two years, the White House turned to Southwick, then a nominee to a vacancy on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi. Bush had nominated him on June 9, 2006 to fill a vacancy on that court left by retired judge William Henry Barbour Jr.. Southwick had a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 19, 2006 and was reported favorably to the floor of the Senate by the Committee on September 29, 2006. However, Southwick, like many other judicial nominees, failed to receive a vote by the full Senate before the 109th Congress adjourned for good on December 9, 2006. Pursuant to Senate rules of procedure, his nomination, along with many others, was returned to the President.

Southwick is married and has two children. He is Roman Catholic. He is a member of the Mississippi National Guard, where he has attained the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was deployed to Iraq in 2004–2005 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Southwick was elected one of the first ten judges of the Mississippi Court of Appeals in 1994. He remained on the court until the end of 2006 when, with a nomination to a lifetime position in the federal judiciary pending, he did not run for re-election. From 1992 to 1997 he served as a member of the Judge Advocate General in the United States Army Reserve. Southwick was on a leave of absence from the court from August 2004 to January 2006. In 2005, he served in Iraq as a Judge Advocate General with the 155th Brigade Combat Team of Mississippi Army National Guard.

Southwick was in private practice as an attorney in Jackson, Mississippi with the firm Brunini, Grantham, Grower & Hewes from 1977 to 1989, serving as a partner from 1983 to 1989. In 1989, Southwick entered government service as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Civil Division. There he supervised the one hundred and twenty-five lawyers of the Federal Programs Branch, which defends suits brought against the United States. He also supervised the Office of Consumer Litigation, a twenty-five lawyer division charged with civil and criminal enforcement of federal consumer laws.

Born in Edinburg, Texas, Southwick graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude from Rice University in 1972 and received his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975. Following law school, Southwick clerked for the Presiding Judge, John F. Onion, Jr., of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals from 1975 to 1976, and then, in Mississippi, for Judge Charles Clark of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1976 to 1977.

Leslie H. Southwick (born February 10, 1950) is a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and a former judge of the Mississippi Court of Appeals.