In 1963, he began the private practice of law with Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where he became a partner in 1971, and where he remained until his appointment to the federal bench.
[2] Straub was nominated by President Bill Clinton on February 11, 1998, to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated by Judge Joseph M. McLaughlin.
In the 2006 case of MacWade v. Kelly, Straub wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the Second Circuit that warrantless, suspicionless police searches of New York City Subway riders in response to terrorism were justified by the "special needs doctrine" and so did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
interested in preventing 'irresponsible procreation,' a phenomenon implicated exclusively by heterosexuals," and that "reserving federal marriage rights to opposite-sex couples 'protect[s] civil society.'"
"[5] On June 26, 2013, the United States Supreme Court affirmed that DOMA Section 3 was unconstitutional because there was "strong evidence" that the "essence" of the law was "'a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group.