Richard Dickson Cudahy
United States federal judge (1926–2015)
Richard Dickson Cudahy Sr. (February 2, 1926 – September 22, 2015) was an American business executive, law professor, politician, and judge. He served 15 years as a judge of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals; he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and took senior status in 1994. Prior to his service in the federal judiciary, Cudahy was C.E.O. of Patrick Cudahy, Inc., the meat-packing company founded by his grandfather and grand-uncle, Patrick and John Cudahy. He also served one year as chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, and served on Wisconsin's influential Public Service Commission.
Education and career
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Cudahy was educated at the Canterbury School and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1948, and a Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1955. He was a Lieutenant in the United States Air Force from 1948 to 1951. He was a law clerk for Judge Charles Edward Clark of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1955 to 1956. He was an assistant to the legal adviser for the United States Department of State from 1956 to 1957. He was in private practice in Chicago, Illinois, from 1957 to 1960.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Richard Dickson Cudahy” as united States federal judge (1926–2015). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7325201. VIAF identifies the subject as 24317723. The Library of Congress control number is no2004085069. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1926, 2015, 1979 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Richard Dickson Cudahy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.