He was appointed by president Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s after a distinguished career as a trial lawyer in Missouri.

[1] His son, Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., is a federal judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Subsequently, he was the part-time City attorney of Cape Girardeau, Missouri from 1964 to 1968, while also working in his family law firm, in the same town.

[2] After retirement from the federal bench, Limbaugh went to work as senior counsel for the law firm of Armstrong Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri.

[5] In 2019, Limbaugh returned to Cape Girardeau and resumed working with the law firm that still bears his father's name.