Joseph McLaughlin is a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He assumed senior status in 1998. At the time of his appointment in 1990, he was a United States District Court Judge in the Eastern District of New York.

Judge McLaughlin received his B.A. degree from Fordham College in 1954, and his LL.B. from the Fordham University School of Law in 1959. He also earned an LL.M. from the New York University School of Law in 1964, and was awarded the LL.D. degree by Mercy College and Fordham University.

Judge McLaughlin was a Captain in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 1955 to 1957. From 1959 unti11961, he was in private law practice with the New York firm of Cahill, Gordon & Reindel. He joined the faculty of the Fordham University School of Law in 1961, where he remained until 1981 , serving as Dean from 1971 until becoming a United States District Judge in the Eastern District of New York in 1981. He was an adjunct professor at Fordham University from 1981 to 1990. He also served as an adjunct professor at St. John's University Law School from 1982 to 1997.

Judge McLaughlin is the co-author of Peterfreund and McLaughlin, Cases and Methods on New York Practice. He is the author of Practice Commentaries for McKinney's New York CPLR and the PLI Monograph on Evidence. He is also the editor-in-chief of Federal Practice Guide (Matthew Bender), and of Weinstein's Evidence (Matthew Bender).

He served as Chair of the New York State Law Revision Commission from 1975 to 1982.

Judge McLaughlin is a native of Brooklyn.